{"id":950937,"date":"2026-10-29T18:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T18:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/950937\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T18:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T18:26:11","slug":"kimi-antonelli-makes-f1-number-one-decision-as-2026-title-win-approaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/950937\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli makes F1 number one decision as 2026 title win approaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kimi Antonelli<\/a> will buck tradition, or at least the tradition set by the last two Formula 1 world champions, and stick with his \u201912\u2019 race number if he wins this year\u2019s world title.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes driver only needs a ninth-placed finish at the Mexican Grand Prix to wrap up the title, irrespective of George Russell and Lewis Hamilton\u2019s finishing positions.<\/p>\n

Kimi Antonelli confirms his F1 race number plans for 2027<\/p>\n

Antonelli<\/a> is, barring a disaster at the Aut\u00f3dromo Hermanos Rodr\u00edguez, just days away from winning the F1 2026 world championship.<\/p>\n

The Italian, who has won nine Grands Prix, has scored 365 points across 18 race weekends and needs just two points to win the title.<\/p>\n

But with that comes one of the biggest decisions he will make in the sport: 12 or 1?<\/p>\n

Formula 1 introduced permanent numbers in 2014, but the winner of the World Championship can choose to race with the number \u20181\u2019 on his car.<\/p>\n

Antonelli says he\u2019ll continue with his \u201912\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to do my job in Mexico first!\u201d he told Blick when asked about his race number for next season.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think that when I reach the finish line, I\u2019ll continue to compete with the number 12.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on Kimi Antonelli<\/p>\n

Wolff lifts the lid on \u2018weird\u2019 Kimi Antonelli US GP admission<\/a> <\/p>\n

UPDATED: When can Kimi Antonelli win the F1 2026 World Championship?<\/a> <\/p>\n

There have four world champions since Formula 1 introduced permanent numbers; Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.<\/p>\n

But while Hamilton opted to stick with his number \u201944\u2019, both Verstappen and Norris ran the number \u20181\u2019.<\/p>\n

Hamilton explained his decision, saying: \u201cI don\u2019t consider myself the champion that year; I consider myself the one that\u2019s fighting for a championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosberg never had to make the choice as he retired from Formula 1 just days after winning the title.<\/p>\n

Verstappen had a different mindset to Hamilton.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah I will run it,\u201d he said. \u201cHow many times can you do that? I don\u2019t know, maybe it\u2019s the only time I can in my life. It\u2019s the best number out there. So I will definitely put it on the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

After his four years with the number \u20181\u2019, he was dethroned by Norris. <\/p>\n

The Briton told Sky F1: \u201cIt\u2019s tradition. It\u2019s there for a reason. It\u2019s there because you can go and try grab it and you can work hard to try and get it.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of us as a team that gets to have a role in McLaren, or my car, will get to wear that with pride. It\u2019s all my mechanics, my engineers, everyone that\u2019s part of McLaren gets to have that acknowledgement too.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not for me, it\u2019s for them as well. It\u2019s their pride, knowing that they put a lot of work and effort into everything, that they can also go \u2018we\u2019re number one\u2019. It\u2019s not as cool when you say \u2018we are number four\u2019 so they will be even happier than I am!\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next: Why Mercedes snubbed Drive to Survive in pre-Netflix F1 boom<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli will buck tradition, or at least the tradition set by the last two Formula 1 world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950938,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,1613,25251,1881,44,82],"class_list":["post-950937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-mercedes","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}