ITALY'S 73 YEAR WAIT FOR AN F1 CHAMPION IS OVER

Kimi Antonelli went into the 71-lap race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez needing a ninth place finish to wrap up the championship. He finished third, taking the last podium spot off Charles Leclerc after the Ferrari locked up and handed it over. He is 20 years old, and Sebastian Vettel's youngest-champion record from 2010 is now trivia. Vettel congratulated him publicly, because what else is there to do. Max Verstappen won the race by 0.799 seconds over Lewis Hamilton, who started on pole, did not win, and afterward said Ferrari have "big problems." It was Verstappen's sixth win in Mexico and it moved him up to second in the standings, a comfortable 119 points behind the 20-year-old. Final tally: Antonelli 380, Verstappen 261. The history is the part that stings for everyone else. Italy had not produced a Formula 1 world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953, a 73-year wait that ended on a Sunday night in Mexico. Antonelli is the 36th different driver to win the thing, and the second first-time champion in two years after Lando Norris in 2025. Then Verstappen and Hamilton, with 11 titles between them, hoisted him in the air, which is about as close to a formal handover as this sport gets.

Why you should give a shit: Italy waited 73 years for another world champion and got one who is 20, so the rest of the grid can start budgeting for a long decade of second place.