Why Antonelli's Italian GP triumph over Russell felt like a title-defining moment

Look at any Formula 1 season, and you'll find the point at which the momentum firmly shifted towards the eventual title winner - even in cases when the championship was decided at the final round - or away from one of the contenders.

For last year, you'd have to pick Oscar Piastri's Baku shunt as the moment at which the championship started to slip away, particularly as his performances declined at the lower-grip circuits in the Americas. In 2022, it was Charles Leclerc's crash at Paul Ricard. In 2018, it was Sebastian Vettel's dive into the barrier at Hockenheim's Sachs-Kurve. A penny for George Russell's thoughts, then, as defeat in Monza against Kimi Antonelli rather carries the aura of another championship-defining moment.

This should have been an open goal for Russell, but it's not one that he intentionally missed; circumstances in Monza rather moved the goalposts away, leaving him to attempt a flick-on into empty space. Pole was missed as Pierre Gasly delivered a mesmeric lap at qualifying's curtain call, but the Briton had to be confident of overcoming the Alpine driver at start - duly making that move at the end of the first lap.

Act One: Antonelli makes up 19 places in 18 laps

Antonelli sliced through the lower half of the field with consummate ease

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

Still, Antonelli made very light work of the cars ahead. Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll were cleared into the first corner, Sergio Perez was dispatched on the run to the Variante della Roggia, and Carlos Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda fell behind before the Parabolica. Nico Hulkenberg was easy prey at the start of the second lap, and the Italian had Gabriel Bortoleto next in his sights - before the safety car emerged to stall that progress.

In a near carbon-copy of his shunt in 2020, Leclerc had hurled his Ferrari into the wall at the Parabolica at great speed; thankfully, Leclerc was out of the car in a jiffy, but the remains of the barrier and his badly damaged Ferrari forced the race to be paused under the red flag.

Antonelli had started on the hard tyre and, from a strategic point of view, this wasn't particularly ideal. His race was geared around a long hard-tyre stint, demonstrated by his mammoth race run in Friday's second practice session on the C3, and the safety car came far too early to be of much benefit here. Those who'd started on the softs and mediums could switch to the hard without needing to make a stop, while Antonelli was likely to need another as he switched to the medium compound.

In the short-term, however, the medium switch was going to be of help in reclaiming a few more positions at the restart - and then Mercedes could judge it as needed through the remainder of the race. On softer tyres, it presented Antonelli with the chance to dispatch the rest of the midfield regulars with a once-again-compressed field.

In Canada, Russell managed to stabilise his lead following a prolonged skirmish with Antonelli, before his powertrain decided to give up the ghost. And, as the lead had stabilised in this instance, Russell's race had changed for the worse - but this time, not because of his own mechanical issue

He'd have to wait a little bit longer after the restart was aborted, and the field waved around for another formation lap when Tsunoda realised too late that he was about to park up in the wrong grid slot. Once the actual restart was set in motion, Antonelli further continued his progress: Bortoleto was moved aside through the championship leader's better launch, and Esteban Ocon was then picked off at Turn 1. Ollie Bearman was then cleared at the next chicane, Franco Colapinto fell off the road at the first Lesmo, and the battle between Arvid Lindblad and Lando Norris for sixth was very quickly superseded by Antonelli's charge down the inside at the start of the next lap. He picked off both with one fell swoop.

By the start of the seventh lap, then, Antonelli was already running in sixth. Gasly offered the next position, as the Alpine's expected fall when measured up to the more competitive cars emerged at the start of the 10th lap. He'd kept a grip on the coat-tails of Russell and Max Verstappen in those early laps but, once relieved of third place by Hamilton, he was out of the rhythm and this opened the door for Piastri and Antonelli to make their way past. Hamilton was the next card to fall, dispatched at Turn 4 on the 12th tour, before Piastri then lost third to Antonelli at the start of the next lap.

At this point, Verstappen had taken the lead. Russell had initially put a bit of distance over the Red Bull, helped by Gasly over the first few laps post-restart but, once the Frenchman had been moved aside by the four-time champion, the battle was very much on. Although Verstappen attempted to exploit the alleged power advantage of the Red Bull-Ford engine, the slipstream was powerful around Monza, and Russell had set about gathering energy and momentum to make another approach by sticking within overtake distance.

After clearing Hamilton, Gasly, and the McLarens, Antonelli forced his way into the Russell-Verstappen battle

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Thus, Verstappen was never really able to pull a disappearing act. Russell thought about a move into Turn 1 at the start of lap 15, but instead picked his moment on the exit of Curva Grande and moved back through at the Variante della Roggia, reclaiming the lead for his efforts. Antonelli hadn't quite been close enough to buy into that battle, and had to wait until the start of the next lap to make his move for second; like Russell, he used the second chicane to ease past the Red Bull, and thus began the battle between the two Silver Arrows.

What followed over the next few laps was a titanic push-me-pull-you battle between the two Mercedes, the brand of 'yo-yo' racing that perhaps has been vilified by some of F1's more traditionalist audience members. Yet, you couldn't take your eyes away from it; in essence, this was a continuation of their battle for the lead in Canada, one where Antonelli made his first successful play for the lead on lap 18, before Russell returned the favour and ignited the tete-a-tete duel. After a couple of false dawns, Russell reclaimed his place at the head of the field by lap 26, and the battle appeared to settle as Mercedes ordered its two drivers to start pulling away from Verstappen - who was keeping his nose within the one-second window.

Back in Canada, Russell had managed to stabilise in the lead following a prolonged skirmish with Antonelli, before his powertrain decided to give up the ghost. And, as the lead had stabilised in this instance, Russell's race had changed for the worse - but this time, not because of his own mechanical issues. Instead, Stroll's stoppage at Turn 1 due to a hydraulic issue brought the Canadian's day to an end, just 24 hours after 'celebrating' his 100th Q1 exit.

Act Two: The second comeback for Antonelli

It looked like the resulting virtual safety car would be swift, as Stroll stopped just by the marshal's post on the run to Turn 1. Still, it was long enough for Mercedes and Red Bull to ring the strategic changes, the VSC offering a chance to stop their medium-shod runners relatively cheaply. They took the initiative; Antonelli and Verstappen entered the pitlane, with Russell left to continue on with his hard tyres.

The question that some asked was this: should Mercedes have stopped both drivers? The problem was that Antonelli was within a second of Russell, and would have lost further time by double-stacking behind his team-mate in an already swiftly decided pit call. Russell, on hard tyres, was expected to get to the end and, at half-distance, it wasn't entirely certain how much the medium tyres would drop through a 26-lap stint. Whatever the situation, Mercedes knew it could win the race by splitting the strategy; if Antonelli got stuck in traffic, Russell would get the job done.

By splitting the strategy, it could leave the door open - and if a VSC emerged later, Russell could get the cheap stop and potentially fight back as well.

Russell's tyres were feeling their age towards the end of the race, as he went long on the hard compound

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

"We didn't know what was the better strategy," Toto Wolff remarked. "At that stage, the system said that the one-stop comes out ahead. That two-stop was coming close to the end, but wouldn't catch. So that's what the software said. So you've got to hedge [your bets] at a certain stage."

At the close of the VSC, Antonelli was 15.5s behind Russell - but on new mediums. Thus, he needed to find an average of 0.6s over his team-mate across the remaining 24 laps to close in, and had to make his way past Gasly, Hamilton, and the two McLarens once more. In reality, that was the easy bit; he swept past Gasly, then Norris, in consecutive laps, then took another four loops of the circuit to close down Hamilton.

The Ferrari driver, who'd been on the mediums since the restart but had not pitted, was finding grip difficult to come by and went deep at the chicane, essentially giving Antonelli third position for free. Piastri was next, cleared at Turn 1 at the start of lap 37, and Antonelli simply needed to close the 9.2s gap to Russell.

Russell was kept informed of the times he needed to potentially ward off Antonelli, and needed to sit somewhere in the low 1m25s to have a chance of containing his younger team-mate. The Briton's side of the garage received a minor fright with an investigation into a yellow flag infringement, but he was quickly absolved; he was free to get on with his job of trying to hold the lead, although his tyres were at this stage beginning to wear out.

"Kimi's in control of it and he's deserving to be in control of it. For me personally, I'm not even thinking about a fight or a comeback" George Russell

After Antonelli had cleared Piastri, Russell was doing just enough to stay afloat in the immediate term, lapping at a rate to stall out the 0.6s-per-lap advantage Antonelli needed. But the Italian now had free air, and was consistently starting to explore the mid-to-low 1m24s - gaining somewhere between 0.7s and 0.8s per lap.

He picked up the pace even further as the fuel burned off, setting consecutive fastest laps to cut 1.1s out of Russell's lead on laps 45 and 46. It seemed inevitable that Antonelli would pass, even more so when he had closed the gap enough to sit on his team-mate's gearbox, but this was the part where he was almost too circumspect in his approach.

With five laps remaining, Antonelli looked primed to pass Russell into the first corner, but stayed in his team-mate's tow and prompted Russell to take to the inside line. Perhaps this was what Antonelli wanted, and he attempted to turn that into a switch-back to gain the momentum along the Curva Grande, but ended up going straight on along the outside line of Turn 2 and skittered across the gravel. The track had started to break up here, to the point where Antonelli lost traction on the crumbling asphalt and presented Russell with a clear reprieve.

Antonelli had his heart in his mouth as he skittered across the gravel

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

"It was quite scary during the moment because the tarmac was breaking up, but I still thought I could do the corner," Antonelli reflected. "Once I went over a bit of gravel, I went straight and I was like 'maybe I lost my chance'. Luckily we still had the pace and managed to bring it home."

With Russell's tyres decidedly second-hand at this point, Antonelli didn't need long to catch up. Once he'd made up the ground, he was much more decisive; Russell went defensive on the run to the Variante Ascari on lap 50, opening the door for Antonelli to cruise through and break away into the sunset. The last time an Italian won at Monza was 60 years ago, Ludovico Scarfiotti taking the honours that day from Ferrari stablemate Mike Parkes; Antonelli has now added his name to the Temple of Speed's illustrious halls - and deservedly so.

With a 66-point lead, Antonelli is in control - and Russell said as much in his post-race musings. He wasn't quite throwing in the towel, per se, but his words very much suggested that he is fully aware he needs a miracle to overhaul his team-mate in the title fight.

"Definitely, Kimi's in control of it and he's deserving to be in control of it," he said. "For me personally, I'm not even thinking about a fight or a comeback or anything. I'm just focused on taking it race by race and trying to maximise every single weekend.

"He's performing incredibly well. It's going to be exceptionally challenging to overcome that gap. So I'm just sort of accepting that is what it is. And I'm just going to enjoy it from here on in and try and win as many races as possible."

Perhaps it feels like one of those title-defining moments to Russell as well. It's certainly not over, not by any stretch, but it is at the point where Mercedes can start designing its #1 merchandise for next season. That Antonelli dispatched Russell on the run to Ascari, Italy's last title winner in F1, is particularly fitting...

Will Monza define the rest of 2026's title fight?

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Author Jake Boxall-Legge

Jake studied engineering at university, as his original ambition was to design racing cars. He was bad at that, and thus decided to write about them instead with an equally limited skillset. The above article is a demonstration of that. In his spare time, Jake enjoys people, places, and things.