Kimi Antonelli has enjoyed a stellar first half to the 2026 season, building a 50-point lead at the top of the drivers’ standings.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
But F1 fans believe Lewis Hamilton is the man most likely to reel the 19-year-old in.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Hamilton has shown considerably improved form this year compared to his difficult 2025 campaign at Ferrari, and the seven-time world champion’s consistency with the SF-26 has kept him firmly in the title conversation heading into the second half of the season.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
RacingNews365 asked fans to vote on who poses the greatest threat to Antonelli’s championship lead, and Hamilton came out on top with 63 per cent of the vote.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
George Russell, Antonelli’s own Mercedes team-mate, was second with 13 per cent, while Max Verstappen and Lando Norris were tied on 10 per cent.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The result reflects a belief among fans that Hamilton, at 41, still has the pace and racecraft to mount a serious title challenge, particularly if Ferrari can continue to deliver updates through the second half of the calendar.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
See the full poll results below!\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli has enjoyed a stellar first half to the 2026 season, building a 50-point lead at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-838323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}