Kimi Antonelli beats George Russell for shock Monza F1 comeback win

Andrea Kimi Antonelli produced an incredible drive from 19th on the grid to claim one of Formula 1’s greatest comeback victories at his home Italian Grand Prix. 

The 20-year-old turned in his most impressive performance in F1 yet as he recovered from a grid penalty for exceeding his engine allocation for the season and charged to a remarkable win on home soil at Monza. 

Antonelli had moved into the top two by lap 16 after the race was reset by an early red flag and had an epic squabble with team-mate and direct title rival George Russell as the Mercedes pair traded places for the lead on several occasions. 

It looked like the battle would last the entire race but things swung into Antonelli’s favour when Mercedes capitalised on a brief virtual safety car to gain a significant tyre offset over Russell, who stayed out in the lead.

Antonelli made short work of getting back onto Russell’s gearbox and, despite a trip into the gravel amid a failed attempt to get past the Briton on Lap 49, he finally got by with his 26th overtake of the race with three laps remaining. 

Not only has Antonelli further increased his championship lead over Russell with his seventh victory of the 2026 season, he has become the first Italian to win the Italian Grand Prix since Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966. 

On a weekend he had a golden opportunity to reduce his title deficit to Antonelli, Russell instead finds himself coming away from Italy with an even bigger gap which now stands at 66 points. He will also have some questions about his strategy in the Mercedes post-race debrief. 

Red Bull's Max Verstappen claimed the final spot on the podium in a distant third, while reigning world champion Lando Norris came out on top of a tense battle with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri to take fourth. 

Lewis Hamilton had a difficult race as Ferrari had a nightmare home race, with Charles Leclerc crashing out hard at the end of the second lap in an incident which stopped the race. 

Shock pole sitter Pierre Gasly slipped down the order to seventh, ahead of Racing Bulls' Arvid Lindblad and his Alpine team-mate Franco Colapinto, while Yuki Tsunoda scored his first point since returning to F1 as a stand-in for Racing Bulls. 

As well as Leclerc, both Aston Martins failed to finish with Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll - whose stoppage caused the virtual safety car - dropping out. 

Disastrous home race for Ferrari 

Ferrari endured a nightmare start to the race as Hamilton lost early ground after getting pushed onto the gravel by Leclerc as the team-mates battled side-by-side exiting the first chicane. 

The seven-time world champion dropped as low as 10th and claimed Leclerc had “pushed me off”. 

At the end of the second lap, things would go from bad to worse for Ferrari as Leclerc heavily crashed out when he was defending fourth place from Piastri. 

The Monegasque went off all by himself at the Parabolica, the scene of his 2020 crash at Monza, after suffering a sudden snap of oversteer, causing him to lose the rear of his SF-26 through the fast right-hander. 

Leclerc was unhurt in the massive shunt that destroyed his Ferrari and caused significant damage to the barriers, leading to the race being suspended for around half an hour.