Where Antonelli can be crowned: the 2026 run-in, mapped

Kimi Antonelli won the United States Grand Prix on October 25, his ninth win of the season, and goes to Mexico City with one hand on the championship. Five races remain, spread across about 19,000 miles of the map. At any one of them, the 20-year-old from Bologna can become the youngest world champion in Formula 1's history.

Here is the run-in, stop by stop, and the arithmetic that goes with it.

Austin: the ninth win

At the Circuit of the Americas, Antonelli started from pole and won by 13.078 seconds from Charles Leclerc's Ferrari, with Max Verstappen third. Lewis Hamilton was fourth and George Russell, his Mercedes teammate, eighth.

It was not quite enough to settle it in Texas. To be champion in Austin he needed to win with Russell ninth or lower and Hamilton outside the top four. Instead he leaves with a lead of 123 points over Russell and 124 over Hamilton, and Verstappen is out of the running.

The arithmetic

After Mexico City, four races are left, and there are no sprints among them, so the most anyone can score from there is 100 points: 25 for each win. That makes Mexico City simple. Antonelli is champion on November 1 if he finishes in the top nine, or if neither Russell nor Hamilton wins the race.

The youngest champion

Antonelli was born in Bologna on August 25, 2006. If he clinches it in Mexico City, he will be champion at 20 years and 68 days. The record belongs to Sebastian Vettel, who won the 2010 title aged 23 years and 134 days. Whichever of the five races it comes in, the record will fall by more than three years.

Mexico City, November 1

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is the highest circuit on the calendar, more than 7,000 feet above sea level. The thin air gives the wings less to grip and the brakes and engines less to cool them, so the cars run with as much downforce as they can carry and still feel light. The lap ends in a stadium section that runs through a ground built for baseball, where the crowd is packed in on every side.

São Paulo, November 8

From Mexico City it is 4,617 miles as the crow flies to Interlagos, one of the few circuits that runs anticlockwise. It knows how to stage a title decider: it has crowned champions on the season's last day before, most famously in 2008.

Las Vegas, November 21

Then 6,082 miles back north to the Las Vegas Strip Circuit, where the cars race past the casinos at night, on a Saturday rather than a Sunday.

Qatar, November 29

The longest hop of the run-in, 8,092 miles, crosses to Lusail, outside Doha. The circuit was built for MotoGP and joined the Formula 1 calendar in 2021, and it races under floodlights.

Abu Dhabi, December 6

The last leg is the shortest: Yas Marina is just 209 miles from Lusail. Its race starts in daylight and finishes under floodlights, and it closes the season. It is also where Vettel won his first title in 2010 and set the record Antonelli is chasing.

Bologna to Brackley to the world

The first map of Antonelli's season follows him from Bologna to the Mercedes factory in Brackley, and to the races where he built his lead. This one is the last chapter. However it ends, it ends somewhere on this map.

Do you know your circuits? The Playground's Grand Prix circuits quiz has all 24 tracks of the 2026 calendar, and today's Formula 1 match has five more places to find.