By Ahmad Ali, Sports Editor
Toto Wolff said it before a wheel had turned in anger. Asked which of his drivers would win the Italian Grand Prix, the Mercedes team principal did not hedge: “Either George, because he was on the front row, or Kimi because he’s going to walk over water, here at Monza.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli started 19th. Fifty-three laps later he crossed the line 3.857 seconds clear of team-mate George Russell, having taken the lead with three laps to run, in front of a grandstand of his own countrymen who had spent the afternoon losing their minds. Some predictions age badly. This one aged like a prophecy.
Nineteenth to first, and only one truly nervous moment
Antonelli was down in 19th because of grid penalties for exceeding his engine allocation — a punishment for Mercedes’ season-long reliability management rather than anything he had done wrong. Pierre Gasly’s Alpine held pole; Russell lined up on the front row alongside him.
The recovery began immediately. Antonelli was 14th after a single lap and 12th on the second, when Charles Leclerc’s heavy accident at the final corner brought out the red flag and handed the whole field a free tyre change. From the restart, Max Verstappen led and Antonelli simply kept coming: eighth after one lap, seventh the next, and third by lap 13, sitting 1.8 seconds off the lead of a race he had begun almost at the back.
The decisive intervention came on lap 29, when Lance Stroll’s car failed and triggered a virtual safety car. Mercedes split their drivers — Antonelli pitted for fresh mediums, Russell stayed out on used hards. “We didn’t know what the better one would be,” Wolff admitted afterwards. “The software said the one-stop comes out ahead.”
It didn’t. Antonelli rejoined 14.3 seconds adrift with 24 laps left and dismantled the gap. His first attempt at the lead ended with him running straight on at the opening chicane, where the Monza surface was visibly breaking up. “It was quite scary there,” he said. “The tarmac was breaking up. I went straight and thought, ‘maybe I lost my chance’. But luckily we still had the pace and managed to bring it home.” Two laps later he was back in the slipstream, and on lap 50 he went through at Ascari and stayed there.
Sixty years, and one of the great long-shot wins
Two records give this result its weight. Antonelli is the first Italian to win the Italian Grand Prix since Ludovico Scarfiotti’s Ferrari victory in 1966 — a 60-year wait ended by a 20-year-old from Bologna. And 19th is the second-lowest grid slot ever converted into a Formula 1 victory, behind only John Watson’s win from 22nd at Long Beach in 1983.
Set those alongside the fact that it was Monza’s 50th running as a world championship round and that Antonelli is now the most successful Italian driver in Formula 1 since Alberto Ascari, and the “folklore” framing stops being hyperbole. Wolff reached for the same register, comparing the drive to the greats: “The differentiator today was the ability to go through traffic. We’ve seen it with other great ones in the past. Lewis, who did it in some of the races.” On Antonelli’s development since a difficult debut campaign, he was blunter still: “Two years later, it’s the biggest glory. A moment where everyone doubted, including himself.”
The title fight is effectively finished
Russell knows it. Second place at Monza left him 66 points adrift — 267 to 201 — and he did not pretend otherwise: “It’s definitely Kimi’s in control of it. He’s deserving to be in control of it. It’s going to be exceptionally challenging to overcome that gap.”
He was entitled to feel aggrieved about the VSC timing, and said as much — “it would have been very interesting to see how the race would have panned out if there was no VSC” — but he also credited the drive, which was the right call. Losing a race from the front row to a team-mate who started 19th is not a strategy story. The standings after Monza:
- Antonelli 267
- Russell 201
- Hamilton 191
- Norris 171
- Leclerc 155
- Verstappen 127
Mercedes lead the constructors’ championship on 468 points from Ferrari’s 346 and McLaren’s 287 — and there is a management problem buried in that, because the crowd booed Russell on the podium. A team fighting itself for a title it has already all but won is a delicate thing to police.
A bruising afternoon for Ferrari
Home weekends are supposed to belong to the Scuderia. Instead Leclerc crashed out on the opening lap, having first pushed Lewis Hamilton into the gravel, and Hamilton recovered only to sixth, 24.6 seconds behind. Verstappen took a solid third for Red Bull, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were fourth and fifth for McLaren, and Gasly converted pole into seventh.
None of it will be remembered. Monza 2026 belongs to one driver, and to a line about walking on water that turned out to be a straightforward description of what was about to happen. As Antonelli put it: “It’s one that I will remember forever. Definitely the fans gave that little bit extra to push more.”
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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