Hamilton Concedes Title After Monza Misery, as Antonelli Stuns From 19th
Lewis Hamilton left Monza on 6 September 2026 with his Formula One world championship hopes in ruins and his relationship with Ferrari fraying in public, after a sixth-place finish that left him 76 points behind the championship leader with ten rounds remaining.
The race belonged to someone else entirely. Kimi Antonelli, the Mercedes driver, won the Italian Grand Prix from 19th on the grid — a remarkable charge through the field at the sport's fastest circuit, located just north-east of Milan. His teammate George Russell followed him home in second, with Red Bull's Max Verstappen third. McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri took fourth and fifth. Hamilton trailed in sixth, a result that deepened rather than eased his frustration. The Guardian
The damage was done on lap one. Hamilton and his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc clashed at the first chicane — Monza's tightest braking zone, where cars funnel from over 350 km/h down to a near-standstill — and Hamilton was squeezed wide, ran off the circuit, and dropped to tenth. Leclerc's race ended a lap later in a heavy crash from which he emerged unhurt, per The Guardian.
Hamilton did not hold back afterwards. He blamed Ferrari's failure to manage their two drivers and execute races properly, saying the Leclerc clash was symptomatic of where the team had been going wrong all season. He pointed the finger directly at team principal Fred Vasseur. "It starts with Fred," Hamilton said, per The Guardian. He also said Ferrari's refusal to prioritise his title bid, combined with operational failures, had cost him a realistic shot at the drivers' championship.
The numbers tell their own story. Before Monza, Hamilton trailed Antonelli by 59 points. After finishing sixth while Antonelli won, that gap ballooned to 76 with ten races left — a deficit that, in practical terms, requires near-perfect results from Hamilton and near-collapse from the leader to close. Leclerc, at 112 points adrift of Antonelli, is further gone still.
Vasseur conceded the opening-lap outcome was poor for the team and said Ferrari would now consider prioritising Hamilton's championship bid, per The Guardian. The FIA's official race report confirmed Antonelli's win from the back of the grid, ahead of Russell and Verstappen. FIA
This was Hamilton's first Italian Grand Prix as a Ferrari driver, and the home crowd — the tifosi, Ferrari's famously passionate supporters — gave him a reception he described as overwhelming, saying the support was like nothing he had ever seen. The warmth off-track made the cold reality on it harder to swallow. A title race that once looked competitive is now slipping toward Antonelli, the young Mercedes driver who turned 19th on the grid into a victory at Formula One's cathedral of speed.
For Ferrari, the reckoning is internal. Two drivers, no team orders, one clash, and a championship that may already be gone.
