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With a lead of 50 points in the drivers’ standings and more wins than all of his competitors combined in the first 11 races, Kimi Antonelli is the clear favourite to win this year’s title going into the second half of the year. The 19-year-old was F1’s standout performer up until the summer break (link to rankings piece?) and his Mercedes team has delivered the best car and engine combination under Formula 1’s new regulations for 2026.
But with at least 11 races left to run (12 if the final two rounds of the year in the Middle East go ahead) and at least 291 points available to any one driver, is there anyone who can mount a serious challenge to Antonelli?
– Dutch Grand Prix 2026: Race start time, how to watch
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– The surprises, talking points and battles shaping the season
Lewis Hamilton has found form at Ferrari this season and has already surpassed his 2025 points total. Photo by Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty ImagesLewis Hamilton
Race wins in 2026: One
Points behind: 50
Bookies odds: 6/1
Of all the challengers on this list, Hamilton is considered the most likely to dethrone Antonelli at the top of the standings by the end of the season. That’s partly because he’s the closest in the championship, but also because he has the experience of seven successful title campaigns in his locker. The 50-point gap is not insignificant, but could be halved in a single weekend with a repeat of the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix when Hamilton won and a car issue forced Antonelli to retire.
Even so, Hamilton’s title chances will rest largely on Ferrari’s ability to deliver another step in performance in the second half of the year. The Italian team made substantial progress with aerodynamic upgrades in the first half of the year, leading Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff to question whether it would be able to maintain that level of progress without breaching the budget cap in the second half.
The key area that Ferrari must improve is its power unit, with Hamilton estimating his car was giving away as much as 0.4 seconds in straight-line performance alone at some races this season. Ferrari has already used one of its two engine performance upgrades granted under the ADUO system earlier this year, but is confident more performance will come from the next one. Whatever it delivers will likely be the key to Hamilton putting the pressure on Antonelli and determining whether he can forge a serious challenge for this year’s title
Kimi Antonelli leads the championship, with George Russell in third. Photo by Bryn Lennon – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty ImagesGeorge Russell
Race wins in 2026: Two
Points behind: 59
Bookies odds: 18/1
It would be easy to point to George Russell’s appalling luck as the main reason he finds himself so far adrift of Antonelli at the halfway stage of the season, but even by his own admission he hasn’t been quick enough to compete with his Mercedes teammate. The more senior of the Mercedes pairing has struggled to adapt to the demands of the 2026 ruleset and found himself regularly off the pace of his 19-year-old teammate.
Russell knows that trend needs to change when racing gets underway again in Zandvoort this weekend, but even with the upper hand over Antonelli he will still need a bit of luck to close the 59-point gap before the end of the year. Overhauling a championship lead of that size in a rival car with a performance advantage is one thing, but doing it in equal machinery is another.
Few drivers are in as good a form as Charles Leclerc right now. Photo by Clive Rose/Getty ImagesCharles Leclerc
Race wins in 2026: One
Points behind: 81
Bookies odds: 22/1
In the three races before the summer break, Charles Leclerc outscored every other driver in the championship (including Antonelli by 11 points) as he finally started to click with the 2026 Ferrari. The problem for Leclerc is how many points he dropped prior to those three races, including the run of the three before that in which he scored just four points.
It seems Leclerc is starting to come to terms with the demands of the 2026 regulations, but it is most likely too little too late to mount a serious title challenge. Above all else, he is 31 points behind teammate Hamilton, meaning that if Ferrari does close the performance gap to Mercedes in the second half of the year, Leclerc is second in line to take advantage of it. It would take something very special from the Monegasque (and something cataclysmically bad from both Hamilton and Antonelli) for Leclerc to win it from here.
Lando Norris won the final race before F1’s summer break. Photo by Michael Potts/LAT ImagesLando Norris
Race wins in 2026: One
Points behind: 91
Bookies odds: 25/1
After his win in Hungary just before the summer break, the reigning world champion hinted that he still believes there is a shot at retaining his title in 2026. Maybe it was the heady mix of adrenaline and podium champagne in his system, but he mentioned there was hope to be taken from McLaren’s sudden return to the front.
“The pressure is on him [Antonelli] for sure,” he told Sky Sports. “There’s no pressure on me. I’ve been feeling very confident.
“They [Mercedes] have made more mistakes as a team and we have made less and we have come strong but I expect them to still win races and expect us to win more races. We just need to be perfect from here on now for the whole year.
“We need to improve the car still,” Norris mentioned when asked about fighting for a title. “We were certainly the quickest in Hungary from qualifying to the race. Not every race is going to be this simple, so we need to work hard to try to get the car to be this everywhere.
“If we can, maybe that is a genuine question.”
The odds are certainly slim, but if the McLaren emerges as the fastest car in the second half of the year and Mercedes continues to struggle with reliability, perhaps there’s an outside chance.
You can never rule Max Verstappen out of a title race. Photo by Mark Sutton – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty ImagesMax Verstappen
Race wins in 2026: Zero
Points behind: 110
Bookies odds: 40/1
If the 2025 season taught us anything it’s that we should never rule out Max Verstappen. After last year’s Dutch Grand Prix, he was 104-points off championship leader Oscar Piastri and he finished the season 11 points ahead of the Australian — albeit still two points shy of eventual champion Norris.
But there are some big differences to 2025. This time last year, Verstappen already had two wins to his name and sat third in the championship. This year he has yet to win and is currently sixth. What’s more, only McLaren and Red Bull were serious contenders for the title in 2025, whereas this year Verstappen is in the fourth fastest car behind McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes.
If — and this is a huge ‘if’ — Red Bull emerge from the summer break with a clear performance advantage over its rivals, you wouldn’t bet against Verstappen doing the rest and hauling in all five of the drivers ahead of him. But given everything we’ve seen so far in 2026, and the fact Red Bull was not granted any engine upgrades under the ADUO rules, the 110-point deficit seems too big to overcome. Even for Max Verstappen.
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