![\"Mexican](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/XPB_1450533_HiRes.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFormula 1\u2019s new world champion Kimi Antonelli has \u201cmade everyone look silly\u201d in 2026, according to outgoing champion Lando Norris. <\/p>\n
Antonelli became the 2026 champion by finishing third in the Mexican Grand Prix and his title celebrations were playing out on screens next to where drivers were conducting their post-race media debriefs.<\/p>\n
There was plenty of praise from his F1 rivals and genuine appreciation for what he\u2019s been able to achieve this year. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnbelievable, what he\u2019s done; he\u2019s blown everyone away. I hope everyone gives him enough credit for what he\u2019s achieved this year,\u201d Norris said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s made everyone else look silly. He\u2019s driven that well, and he\u2019s been able to click with his car. He\u2019s worked hard to understand how to drive this car, and he\u2019s exploited it better than anyone else. He deserves every single bit of success. He deserves these moments he\u2019s doing now and celebrating. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s even more impressive that it\u2019s only his second season in Formula 1. He\u2019s 20 years old. It\u2019s incredible. I\u2019m very happy for him. I\u2019m very happy to see my number one go over to him, because he deserves it. I\u2019m, in a way, happy to see it go.\u201d <\/p>\n
Norris added: \u201cHe has a very strong team-mate [George Russell], but he\u2019s beaten him the whole time, the whole season. <\/p>\n
\u201c[You can] count how many mistakes he\u2019s made this season – I don\u2019t even think you could put it on [all five fingers of] one hand, honestly. He\u2019s come from the back of the grid. He\u2019s won from the front. He\u2019s done everything he needs to do. He\u2019s been there every single race. That\u2019s something that no other driver can say they\u2019ve done this season. <\/p>\n
\u201cHis consistency, his performance. He\u2019s smashed everyone. Smashed the guy in the same car as him. That\u2019s difficult to do. That\u2019s been very impressive.\u201d <\/p>\n
The perfect podium?<\/p>\n
Franco Colapinto was debriefing his race when Antonelli was standing on the podium alongside the driver he replaced at Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton, and the driver he\u2019s long been compared to, Max Verstappen. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere he is, between Lewis and Max,\u201d Colapinto said. \u201cIt can\u2019t get any better than that – the world champion between the two best champions in the last years of F1. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe deserves it; he\u2019s extremely young, so he needs to enjoy it. It\u2019s the dream of all of us, what he had this year. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe speed, we all knew that he had it, but I think the consistency he showed this year, winning the races, being on the podium and scoring the points and not making mistakes, has been extremely impressive. <\/p>\n
\u201cTo have that weight on your shoulders of being P1 in the championship for so long, from almost the start to the end – it\u2019s wow, [he dealt with it] so very well. <\/p>\n
\u201cVery happy for him and he\u2019s a world champion, so he\u2019s a deserved champion.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hamilton and Verstappen were both quick to pay tribute to Antonelli, embracing him in parc ferme, with Verstappen saying he was \u201cvery proud of him\u201d while Hamilton said he was \u201cso grateful to be in the race to witness\u201d the \u201cpretty phenomenal\u201d crowning of F1\u2019s youngest-ever champion. <\/p>\n
Antonelli has won nine races and has only been off the podium in one grand prix he\u2019s finished this year. <\/p>\n
\u201cHis consistency,\u201d Gabriel Bortoleto said when The Race asked what\u2019s been the most impressive part of Antonelli\u2019s season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI fought for championships in F2 and F3, and I know how nervous you are when you are fighting, but imagine fighting for a Formula 1 championship against Russell, Max, Lewis, all these world champions. So much experience, and the guy didn\u2019t break.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always there, consistent, boom, on top. I mean, he [only] had one or two bad races where you can say he was out of pace or he crashed. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, impressive job from him and I hope to be fighting for titles with him in the future because that would be a beautiful story, a guy I\u2019ve known since I was, like, 10 years old, 11 years old, to F1 and now he\u2019s champion. I\u2019m trying to reach that [goal] so hopefully one day.\u201d <\/p>\n
Antonelli\u2019s been in an enviable position of having a title-challenging car in his second season – his rivals would relish that – but there\u2019s zero doubt among them that Antonelli has maximised the opportunity. <\/p>\n
\u201cCompletely deserved,\u201d Carlos Sainz said. \u201cHonestly, he’s done a really, really good year. He’s known how to maximise his chance of becoming world champion in his second year in Formula 1. <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of us would have wished to have such a competitive car in our first years in Formula 1, and he had exactly that. He was given the opportunity to win a championship, and the year that it was given it to him, he maximised everything. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe did a perfect first half of the year, dominated and then controlled the second part of the year, which is what a world champion has to do, and I think he did it really, really well.\u201d <\/p>\n
Sainz’s Williams team-mate Alex Albon joked that \u201ccoming into the year, I’m not sure what his betting odds were\u201d, adding: \u201cIt’s really impressive.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso his mentality. It seemed, at least from the outside, that he looked very relaxed. <\/p>\n
\u201cI heard some comments in qualifying that he was a bit tense. Apart from [Mexico] qualifying, he’s been good.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anything, his race pace has been really impressive. That’s what’s separated him from the rest of the grid this year. <\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, it’s probably partly car as well, but he’s been really impressive to see.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1\u2019s new world champion Kimi Antonelli has \u201cmade everyone look silly\u201d in 2026, according to outgoing champion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-949969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949969","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=949969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}