Belgian Grand Prix Takeaways: Kimi Antonelli spreads his wings
F1 OpinionTuesday, 21 July 2026 at 08:00
Kimi Antonelli soared high in his performances to win the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix from pole as rivals tried to deny him a return to the top step of the Formula 1 podium.
The 19-year-old Italian was on it, apart from the first practice, when Mercedes misjudged the grip and under-winged their car. After that mistake was sorted, Antonelli was in control.
It was an interesting weekend we witnessed in Spa, a track we look forward to every season, something we will be deprived of when it starts rotating with Barcelona from 2028 on.
"Interesting" can be either positive or negative, mind you, but let us start our Takeaways from the Belgian Grand Prix with a positive.
Can anyone or anything stop Antonelli?
Forget for a moment about the shameful 2026 Formula 1 cars and their lame power units; having a story like Antonelli and his rise this season gives us a reason to watch every weekend.
Not in his wildest dreams would Toto Wolff have expected that his protégé would deliver such performances in his second season in the top flight, destroying an established driver, a supposed Champion in the waiting, like George Russell.
Nothing seemed to faze Antonelli in Spa. He took pole from Max Verstappen by over three tenths despite Red Bull Racing making Isack Hadjar tow the Dutchman in Q3 of Qualifying.
And while Verstappen passed Antonelli at the start of the race, the latter soon reversed that and then drove off opening up the gap.
That Ferrari and Charles Leclerc benefited from the Virtual Safety Car to take the lead did not even rattle Antonelli, who set out chasing the #16 Ferrari relentlessly to finally make the pass and then check out even when his engineer was warning him about track limits and Charlie's naughty defending.
The Russell conundrum
Russell playing catchup to Antonelli seems to have become the norm this season, as the Briton is at a loss trying to find out why he is slow compared to his teammate.
One of the interesting things on F1 TV's commentary—I don't recall who said it though—was that Russell was trying to "reverse engineer" Antonelli's driving, which means he had to drive against his nature.
But the "interesting" aspect of Russell's trouble—which could be positive or negative based on who's looking at it—is the straight-line speed issue with his W17.
Toto Wolff said Mercedes had straight-line speed issues with all their power units in Spa—works and customers. He also said that 50% of the issue was on Russell's driving.
But why didn't Antonelli seem to have an issue with his straight-line speed? That looked decent in the end when Leclerc was trying to catch him, a futile effort as it turned out to be.
Don't even try to bring up the conspiracy theories that Mercedes are favoring Antonelli... He revealed he suffered issues in Melbourne when speaking in the post-race press conference. Something is genuinely off in this situation...
Russell was over half a second slower than Antonelli in Qualifying and his move on Hamilton showed how desperate he was to stay in touch with his teammate during the Grand Prix.
Antonelli beating Russell would be normal in case the latter was over the hill, but he is not. He is still in his prime but as he fights a formidable teammate and car issues, he is currently looking into the abyss.
Stewarding at its best
The stewards during the Belgian Grand Prix delivered some "interesting" decisions, and they are far from positive.
Let's start with Hamilton vs Russell on Lap 1. Looking back at the onboard with Lewis, there might have been a hint of understeer, but far from being an over-optimistic dive bomb that warranted a penalty, especially since it happened on an the opening lap. So it had the "racing incident" all over it.
Russell said after his DNF that he didn't blame Hamilton, throwing his Mercedes team and his W17 under the bus in his usual eloquent manner while trying to absolve himself from any blame, but you could see he pulled a Hail Mary with that move.
Moving on, as it didn't take the stewards long to suffer another brain fade when they decided to let Leclerc go after his defense on Piastri that left the latter with damage that ultimately ruined his race on a day when he was surprisingly showing good form, a rarity this season.
In their explanation as to why Leclerc escaped penalty, the stewards said: “In the stewards’ determination, Car 16 did not deliberately crowd Car 81 off the edge of the track. Car 16 followed the racing line before the entry to Turn 5 by moving slightly to the left to open up for Turn 5, and side-to-side contact occurred between the two cars."
However, Leclerc "deliberately" went on to apply the same tactics when defending from his teammate after that to the point that Mercedes warned Antonelli about the Monegasque's defending towards the end of the race when he was trying to retake the lead.
Hamilton's penalty could've been somehow acceptable had Leclerc also been penalized, but the way the stewards handled these two incidents was hogwash.
Speaking of hogwash
The Juan Pablo Montoya clown show on F1TV continues. Our stance at GrandPrix247 from the Columbian is clear, and while I wanted to discuss his latest nonsense in a separate article, I decided it was not worth more than a few lines within these Takeaways.
Forget about Montoya's shameless promotion of the 2026 F1 cars; so far this season, the way he was reflecting on the Hamilton and Leclerc incidents in Spa was even too much for his F1TV co-hosts to fathom.
Of course he believed Hamilton was rightly penalized and Leclerc was rightly exonerated, and the manner in which he was discussing that with Alex Brundle, a respectable pundit like his father Martin, was cringe-worthy.
If you look closely, Brundle was visibly disturbed with Montoya's statement, almost in disbelief.
It is one thing to have an opinion and share it. Everyone has every right to do so, but Montoya's delivery of his opinions has become disgusting...
Quick Hits
- Needless to say, the 2026 Formula 1 cars were a disgrace around the classic track like Spa-Francorchamps.
The way the drivers had to lift and downshift in the last sector way ahead of the Bus Stop chicane was painful. I do not recall seeing any driver lockup there this time, because the cars were too slow getting there.
Previously, drivers had to late-brake and judge that corner perfectly to make sure they launched properly towards the start/finish line, with many messing up, locking up, and missing the corner. That was not the case. - You have to give it to FOM for their tenacious efforts to show how racing was great in Spa, shoving videos down out throats of the cars going flat out in Eau Rouge and Raidillon.
They were lucky that the algorithms found that the fastest way around Spa was by going flat out at that corner complex.
But then, we all heard the cars in the final sector, and we also listened to what the drivers were saying about Pouhon... - McLaren thought they were smart taking grid penalties for new power unit elements on Lando Norris' car last weekend. That usually is the smart decision, as Spa allows overtaking, but it turned out to be a bittersweet affair for the reigning Formula 1 Champions since their MCL40 was competitive, which must have been frustrating for Norris, who qualified third.
- Red Bull Racing raced without their "Macarena" wing this weekend for safety reasons and, as a result, paid a price with straight-line speed. However, Verstappen did well to get on the podium and was gracious enough to thank Hadjar for his help in Qualifying with the tow. The Frenchman, by the way, did very well to race from 21 to sixth.
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