One stat to highlight Kimi Antonelli’s hot start to the 2026 F1 season

Kimi Antonelli is off to a scorching start to the 2026 Formula 1 season, of that there is no doubt.

The young Mercedes driver stands atop the Drivers’ Championship standings with 100 points, 20 points clear of teammate George Russell and another 41 points ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who sits in third with 59 points. In just his second season, Antonelli began the year with a P2 at the Australian Grand Prix, and followed that with his first three Grand Prix victories. After taking the Chinese Grand Prix, Antonelli notched wins in both the Japanese Grand Prix as well as the Miami Grand Prix last weekend.

With those three wins, Antonelli not only joined some elite company, but he made a little Formula 1 history of his own.

In addition to those three consecutive wins — the first three of his career — Antonelli was on pole position for each of those, with his pole for the Chinese Grand Prix the first Grand Prix pole of his young career.

As pointed out by none other than Will Buxton, who in addition to his duties broadcasting IndyCar with FOX Sports maintains an eye on F1 through the Netflix docuseries Drive to Survive, that put Antonelli in elite company. As Buxton noted, the first drivers in F1 history to take their first three poles consecutively? Antonelli, Ayrton Senna, and Michael Schumacher.

The drivers in F1 history to take their first three wins in consecutive fashion? Damon Hill, Mika Häkkinen, and Antonelli.

Every other driver on that list won at least one F1 Drivers’ Championship. Senna won titles in 1988, 1990 and 1991, Hill won in 1996, Häkkinen won titles in 1998 and 1999, and Schumacher still stands atop F1 history books (alongside Lewis Hamilton) with his seven titles.

But where the Mercedes driver sets himself apart is converting those first three pole positions to wins.

Because, as Buxton noted, the list of drivers to consecutively win their first three F1 races from their first three pole positions contains just one name.

Kimi Antonelli.

Speaking after Antonelli’s win in Miami, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admitted that even he did not see this run of form coming.

“Yes, absolutely. I often said it last year: bringing an eighteen-year-old into the team would have given us moments of celebration and others where we wanted to tear our hair out over his mistakes,” said Wolff.

“But it was a necessary process to get him to know the team. Helping him is the fact that this is a new generation of cars and that all the drivers are still learning. I expected a good start, but I have to admit: three wins in a row was not something we had expected.”

Perhaps because it is something F1 has rarely seen.