KEY MOMENTS\u00a0Kimi Antonelli on brink of F1 title this weekend\u00a0FP1 takes place at 6:30pm GMT, with FP2 at 10pm GMT10 rookies taking part in opening practice session\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 2026 Formula 1 season continues this weekend with the Mexico City Grand Prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mexico City hosts the 19th round of this season’s F1 world championship, which marks the second opportunity for Andrea Kimi Antonelli to clinch this year’s title.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Antonelli leads the standings by an almost unbeatable 123 points over Mercedes team-mate George Russell and will be crowned champion in Sunday’s race with a ninth-place finish, regardless of where Russell finishes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton is the only other driver in mathematical contention, but the seven-time world champion must win and hope Antonelli scores no points to keep the title fight rolling on to Brazil next weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In reality, 20-year-old Antonelli, who has won nine grands prix this season, looks set to secure his first F1 world title in Mexico. In doing so, the Italian will break Sebastian Vettel’s 16-year record for being the youngest-ever world champion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mercedes is unlikely to have things all its own way, however, with Mexico’s high altitude likely to affect the competitive order. The likes of Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren are all snapping at the Silver Arrows’ heels and waiting for any opportunity to snatch a win.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KEY MOMENTS\u00a0Kimi Antonelli on brink of F1 title this weekend\u00a0FP1 takes place at 6:30pm GMT, with FP2 at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":646198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-646197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=646197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/646198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=646197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=646197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=646197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}