Antonelli poised to clinch maiden F1 title in Austin as Mercedes upgrades come under scrutiny
Kimi Antonelli will attempt to seal his first Formula One world championship at the United States Grand Prix in Austin this weekend, while his Mercedes team faces scrutiny over upgrades that carry implications for next season.
The 20-year-old Antonelli holds a 102-point lead over his teammate George Russell and will become Formula One’s youngest world champion if he wins, Russell finishes ninth or lower and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton is fifth or lower; even if he does not clinch the title in Texas, in all likelihood he will be crowned in Mexico a week later. Antonelli has been exceptional in only his second season in F1 but benefited early on from a car that for the opening half of the season was all but untouchable.
Red Bull’s recent upgrade package has translated into on-track gains, with Max Verstappen winning the past two races after the team’s updates unlocked performance they believed was available. Ferrari are now close to Mercedes and have a raft of aerodynamic upgrades arriving in Austin, while McLaren, having slipped slightly in recent races, have upgrades planned for the upcoming triple-header in the US, Mexico and Brazil.
Mercedes introduced their second and final improvements aimed at the Bahrain Grand Prix during the Malaysian weekend, but an expected uplift of as much as three-10ths a lap was met with disappointment. The team found the new specification made the car harder to drive, with the balance switching between understeer and oversteer and the tyres working harder, leaving lap-time gains elusive.
To diagnose the issue the team reverted to the old specification on Russell’s car and retained the new one on Antonelli’s for the Singapore Grand Prix to aid comparison; the Italian reported there had been an improvement after Singapore. “Was it an easy car like the previous one? I don’t think it was. Does it have the performance that we were hoping the upgrade would bring? I don’t think so yet. But it was a step in the right direction,” Wolff said after Singapore. “In Austin, we should see whether we can continue to consolidate that and whether it has more performance, because it’s crucial for the development direction for the next year.”
Austin is a typical circuit for assessing balance, featuring medium and fast-speed corners on a flowing layout where a quick, well-behaving car is rewarded — the kind of track where Mercedes were in control for much of the season. That track profile will be used as a measure after a sequence of recent updates across teams altered the pecking order.
Mercedes remain quick but have not replicated the dominance of the 2014-2020 period when the team was largely untouchable and missteps were rare; in each of the previous four years upgrades sometimes failed to deliver and in some cases set the team back. With the front runners still feeling their way toward maximising the new regulations and rivals developing rapidly, the direction Mercedes establish now will inform next season’s programme.
Mercedes’ lead this season remains formidable and the team cannot seal the constructors’ championship this weekend, while Antonelli’s drivers’ title is described as surely all but done and dusted. Austin may therefore do more than provide a potential coronation: it could indicate whether Mercedes’ recent development path offers the platform to repeat that success in 2027.