Spa 2026: Antonelli Reminds Everyone Why He Is Still the One to Beat

Three races without a win. A championship lead that had shrunk from 66 points to 25 in the space of a month. Enough questions about a wobble to make people wonder whether the pressure of a first title fight was finally catching up with a 19 year old. Then Spa happened, and every one of those questions got the same answer at once.

Kimi Antonelli did not just win the Belgian Grand Prix. He lost the lead through no fault of his own, spent a dozen laps calmly working out how to get it back, then took it back anyway with ten laps still to run. It was not the crushing, lights to flag domination that defined the start of his season. In many ways it was more convincing than that, because this time something actually went wrong and he solved it anyway. His lead over the field is now 45 points, and the manner of the win will do more to unsettle his rivals than the margin.

How the Race Unfolded

Max Verstappen made the start of the weekend. From second on the grid he got the better launch and swept past Antonelli into Eau Rouge, and for a moment it looked as though Red Bull might spoil the party. It did not last. Antonelli used the straight line speed of the Mercedes to reclaim the position before the end of the Kemmel Straight, and from there the early laps belonged to him.

The real drama on lap one happened further back. George Russell, already carrying a power deployment problem that had cost him time all weekend, found himself swallowed by both Ferraris off the line. Trying to fight back around the outside of Lewis Hamilton at the Fagnes chicane, the two touched. Russell speared into the gravel and did not emerge again. It was the sort of moment that can define a championship, and not in the way Mercedes would have wanted.

A safety car for the recovery bunched the field back up, and when racing resumed Antonelli controlled the restart well enough to keep Charles Leclerc and Verstappen behind him. The race then settled into a strategic waiting game, one that turned on its head when a Virtual Safety Car arrived at exactly the wrong moment for Mercedes. Ferrari pitted Leclerc under it, a stop that cost him almost nothing in track position, and he emerged in the lead.

What followed was the most impressive stretch of Antonelli's season so far. Rather than force the issue, he spent lap after lap simply taking a tenth here and a tenth there off Leclerc's advantage, until the gap that had once looked comfortable had disappeared entirely. On lap 34 he made his move at Les Combes, and from there he was never seriously troubled again. He crossed the line 1.9 seconds clear of Leclerc, with Verstappen completing the podium.

The Russell Problem That Will Not Go Away

For George Russell, Spa was not really about the collision with Hamilton at all. That was a symptom rather than the cause. Mercedes have confirmed a genuine power unit fault cost him meaningful lap time in both qualifying and the race, on top of a separate issue shared across all their cars that left him short of energy at exactly the moment he needed it on lap one. The team have been open that the fault sits with the car, not the driver, but three races without a point is three races without a point regardless of the explanation.

What should worry Mercedes more than the technical gremlins is the tone Russell struck afterwards. He described himself as simply used to the disappointment by this stage of the season, the kind of resignation that suggests a driver who has stopped expecting things to go his way. With Antonelli now 45 points clear, Russell's title challenge is no longer just behind. It is starting to look like it needs a very different second half of the season to survive at all.

A Good Weekend for the Chasing Pack

Isack Hadjar deserves a mention that has nothing to do with the top three. Starting from the back of the grid after a power unit penalty, he worked his way through the field all afternoon, picked up a well timed pit stop under the Virtual Safety Car, and finished sixth. His own team principal called it his best race for Red Bull without much hesitation, and with the team's driver line up still a live topic of conversation, performances like this one matter more than most.

Lando Norris will feel he left more on the table than most. Seventh place does not reflect a car that he insists had the pace for a podium, and the delay in bringing him in for fresh tyres, rather than any lack of speed, is what cost McLaren a much stronger result. Even his own team principal, rarely one for overstatement, admitted afterwards that the pace on offer at Spa was considerably better than the finishing position suggested.

What's Next

The paddock heads straight to Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before the summer break. Antonelli arrives with a 45 point cushion and the look of a driver who has just answered every question asked of him this season. Whether Russell, Hamilton or anyone else can put a dent in that before the break is the story of the next race weekend.