F1 2026 Season So Far: Antonelli Leads by 81 Into Baku
This is a Happy Hour Racing between-races feature. Formula 1 had a weekend off after Madrid, so before the cars roll into Baku we are stopping to look at where the 2026 season actually stands.
The Short Version
Fourteen of the 23 races of the 2026 Formula 1 season are done. Andrea Kimi Antonelli has won eight of them and leads the championship by 81 points over his own Mercedes teammate, George Russell. Mercedes has won 10 of 14 races and leads the constructors by 145. The last Grand Prix, the first one ever held at the new Madring circuit in Madrid, went to Antonelli again. Next up is the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, and it runs on a Saturday this year.
Kimi Antonelli Went From Rookie to Runaway Leader
Antonelli turned 20 in August. He had zero career wins when this season started. He now has eight, and every one of them came in 2026: China, Japan, Miami, Canada, Monaco, Belgium, Italy and Spain. Five of those came back to back between rounds two and six, which is the kind of run that usually belongs to a driver ten years into a career.
The consistency is the scary part. In 14 starts he has 12 podiums, six poles and exactly one retirement. He has finished outside the top three twice all year. That is not a driver getting lucky with a fast car. That is a driver banking points every single Sunday while everybody behind him takes turns having a bad weekend.
The Title Fight Is Now a Mercedes Garage Problem
Here is the odd shape of 2026: the closest man to Antonelli is the guy in the other Mercedes. Russell has two wins, seven podiums and 211 points, and he is the only driver who can still realistically do the math. Everybody else is further back than the gap between the two silver cars.
Russell himself is not pretending otherwise. After Madrid he said plainly, "Realistically, I'm not in the fight for the drivers' [title]." That is a teammate reading a scoreboard, not a driver quitting. To actually catch Antonelli, Russell needs to outscore him by nine points per round for the entire rest of the season, and he has to do it in identical equipment against a driver who has finished on the podium in 12 of 14 races.
The 2026 Numbers, All in One Place
There are 233 points still available across the nine remaining rounds, because Singapore in October carries the last sprint of the year. So this is not finished on paper. It is just that somebody has to actually take those points off Antonelli, and so far nobody has managed to do it for more than a race at a time. You can see the full run-in on the Formula 1 schedule and standings page, which updates after every race.
Max Verstappen Is Having the Year Nobody Predicted
Fourteen races into 2026, Max Verstappen has not won a race. His last Grand Prix win was Abu Dhabi on December 7, 2025. For a driver who won eight times last season and lost the title by two points, that is a hard number to look at.
It is not that he has been slow. He has six podiums, he was second at Madrid, and he has finished on the podium in four of the last five rounds. The problem is the four retirements earlier in the year, including one at Zandvoort, that stripped out the points he needed to stay connected to the front. He sits sixth with 145, behind two Mercedes, two Ferraris and one McLaren, and his 2026 Red Bull has not given him a car that can beat the W17 on pure pace.
There is a nice piece of timing here. Verstappen won last year's Azerbaijan Grand Prix from pole, and Baku is the exact kind of low-drag, big-braking circuit where the Red Bull has looked most comfortable. If he is going to break the streak, this is a reasonable weekend to do it.
McLaren Slid, Ferrari Steadied, Cadillac Is Still Waiting
McLaren won the constructors' title in 2025 and put both drivers in the top three of the championship. In 2026 the new regulations flipped that. Reigning champion Lando Norris is fourth with two wins, Hungary and Zandvoort, and McLaren is third in the constructors' standings behind Ferrari.
Oscar Piastri is the story inside that story. He scored 410 points and seven wins in 2025. Through 14 rounds of 2026 he has 120 points, no wins and two podiums, and he sits seventh behind Verstappen. Two non-starts at the opening two rounds set the tone, and he has never fully found the MCL40 since.
Ferrari, meanwhile, quietly became the second-best team on the grid. Lewis Hamilton is third in the championship with 191 points and got his first Grand Prix win in red at Barcelona in June. Charles Leclerc is fifth and won at Silverstone. At the other end of the pit lane, new team Cadillac is still looking for its first point in its debut season.
What Baku Could Actually Change
Baku is the closest thing Formula 1 has to a points lottery. Long straight, concrete walls, safety cars that show up at the worst possible moment for whoever is leading. It is the one track left on the calendar where an 81-point cushion can get meaningfully smaller in about 90 minutes.
One logistics note before you set an alarm: the race weekend moves forward a day this year, so the Grand Prix runs on Saturday, September 26.
Your race timings for Baku this weekend. Reminder: We race on Saturday this time around.
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) September 21, 2026
We're so back #AzerbaijanGP
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 21, 2026
So here is the question for you. Does Antonelli close this out with races to spare, or does Baku start a run that drags the championship into November? Tell us in the comments who you think takes the win on Saturday.
The Bottom Line
Fourteen races in, 2026 belongs to a 20 year old in his second season and to the team that got the new rules right. Mercedes has 10 wins, Antonelli has eight of them, and the only driver close enough to matter shares his garage. Baku is where that gets tested next.
Shop F1 Gear at Happy Hour Racing
Mercedes is running away with the constructors' championship, and we have the gear to match. Here is what is in stock right now:
- Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 George Russell 1:2 Scale Helmet
- McLaren F1 Lifestyle New Era 9Fifty Camo Baseball Hat
- Red Bull Racing F1 Max Verstappen RB16B Dutch GP 1:18 Model Car
- Formula 1 Tech Limited Edition Belgian GP Hat, White
- Men's Formula 1 Tech Collection Team Softshell Jacket, Black
More of it lives in the Formula 1 collection. New pieces land every week, so it is worth checking back before Baku.
