the 2026 united states gp: kimi will have to wait a week

two weeks ago i predicted max verstappen would make it three in a row and kimi antonelli would have to wait until mexico. one out of two. again. this time it was the other half.

the maths for austin was simple. kimi needed to win, with george russell ninth or lower and lewis hamilton fifth or lower. verstappen had won four of the last five races at COTA and arrived on two wins in a row. no sprint this time. ferrari topped all three practice sessions. remember that.

qualifying: antonelli on pole by 0.179 seconds from verstappen, with isack hadjar third, leclerc fourth and hamilton fifth. his seventh pole of the year. toto wolff said he had expected “something between P3 and P5” and that kimi “pulled out such a miracle lap that i struggle to understand where that’s coming from.” the team principal, everyone. russell was sixth, over four tenths slower in the same car. gabriel bortoleto got an 80-place grid penalty for engine parts. (80 places. on a grid of 22. russell’s 60 in singapore looks modest now.)

kimi started on mediums, the red bulls on softs, and the red bulls started like red bulls. leclerc went round the outside of verstappen through the esses, ran low on battery, and lost the place again before the lap was over. kimi was already two seconds clear. verstappen pitted on lap 14. kimi’s engineer told him to “go as long as we can”. he went to the end of lap 24, put on hards and drove them to the flag. he won by 13.078 seconds. nine wins this season.

behind him, verstappen called his car “undriveable”, and when asked about his front wing said he had “literally no idea”. he passed norris on lap 47, then leclerc came through on fresher hards and passed both of them. “i think we were just a little bit average in the race,” said max. average, and on the podium for a sixth race in a row. the dutch lion’s average is fine.

then there’s russell. on the opening lap he banged wheels with oscar piastri and went off the track. “i was on the inside, he was overtaking on the outside. that’s his risk,” he said. the stewards said it was his, and gave him five seconds. he served it at his only stop, came out behind piastri and stayed there. eighth, 54 seconds behind his teammate. “yeah, it was a very bad day. don’t really know why.” the gods get the day off again, george. but it also means you’re still mathematically in this.

so is hamilton, who passed hadjar and norris on his last stint and finished fourth. one place too high for kimi. norris was fifth on old tyres, hadjar sixth and piastri seventh. oliver bearman hit pierre gasly, got ten seconds (“are you kidding me?”) and retired.

and my GOAT? he started 12th and alex albon hit him at turn 11 on the first lap. “half of the floor is not there,” he said. he nearly retired, got a new front wing instead and finished 16th, a lap down. he then called the quality of drivers in the bottom third of the grid “very low. as we saw today with alex.” no investigation. i’m still choosing hope.

the championship: antonelli 365, russell 242, hamilton 241, verstappen 236, leclerc 233, norris 211. that’s a 123-point lead with five races and 125 points left. kimi is champion in mexico if he finishes ninth or better, or if neither russell nor hamilton wins. he would be the youngest world champion ever, at 20.

mexico city is on november 1. my prediction: kimi wraps it up with a podium, and alonso scores a point. see you there.