Kimi Antonelli will start his home Italian Grand Prix from the back of the grid. Mercedes has confirmed a full power unit change, a strategic sacrifice at the track built for overtaking, and it hands Hamilton the one weekend of 2026 where the championship leader has to fight through the field on merit.
An ESPN championship analysis by Laurence Edmondson argues that even that opening is unlikely to change the outcome. The US outlet lists Hamilton at 6/1 as the second favourite, George Russell at 18/1, Charles Leclerc at 22/1, Lando Norris at 25/1, and Verstappen at 40/1.
Antonelli has won half the season
After 12 of 23 rounds, Antonelli sits on 242 points with six wins, six poles and ten podiums, according to Motorsport.com’s post-Zandvoort standings. Russell is second on 183, level with Hamilton but ahead on countback with two wins to Hamilton’s one. Leclerc is fifth on 155.
Mercedes leads the constructors’ championship on 425 points, 87 clear of Ferrari. The car has been the best straight-line and race-pace package under Formula 1’s rewritten 2026 regulations, and no rival has managed a sustained response.
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Ferrari’s second engine upgrade arrives at Monza
Ferrari has chosen this weekend for the second and larger of its two permitted power unit upgrades under F1’s ADUO scheme. The revised turbocharger is expected to deliver around 15 horsepower and roughly 0.2 seconds per lap, double the gain from the team’s first upgrade in Austria.
Hamilton has openly acknowledged the size of the deficit the update needs to close.
“I think the second half will be stronger. We’ve been probably like three or four tenths down on the straights in pace and power,” he told reporters ahead of the summer break.
The timing is why Monza matters more than any other race left in the calendar. It is the one weekend where a Ferrari upgrade arrives, an Antonelli penalty arrives, and the score at the chequered flag can plausibly swing 15 or 20 points in Hamilton’s direction rather than the two or three he has been picking up all year.
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Wolff picks the numbers over the home race
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff was blunt about why the team is willing to spend Antonelli’s home race clawing through traffic. The Italian has already suffered two power unit-related retirements this season, including a stoppage at the Spanish Grand Prix, and the seasonal component quota was going to run out somewhere.
“With Kimi, we’re taking the full thing. Our calculations say that that’s the best track to take it,” Wolff told Formula1.com.
“Obviously, algorithms don’t take their nationality into consideration. We’re here to fight for a championship and not get the most PR.”
The logic is that Monza is one of the easier circuits to overtake at, so a driver in a Mercedes with clean tyres and a fresh engine can carve his way toward the front. Russell is also expected to serve his own power unit penalty later in the season, with the venue still under discussion.
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Verstappen 130 points off with 11 to run
Verstappen’s route is not narrow, it is arithmetically punishing. The four-time world champion has yet to win a race in 2026, sits sixth on 112 points, and is 130 points off Antonelli with Red Bull only fourth in the constructors’ championship. Even a hypothetical sweep of the remaining 11 grands prix would only work if Antonelli’s average finish collapsed to roughly seventh place across the same stretch.
ESPN’s 40/1 assessment reflects that reality. Edmondson notes that Verstappen predicted the new rules would underwhelm and that 2026 is now proving him right, to the point that his commitment to the sport has become part of the story.
Leclerc’s odds are only marginally better. At 87 points back and with Hamilton ahead of him in the same car, ESPN’s verdict is that a Leclerc title would require a Ferrari sweep of the second half combined with something close to a collapse from both Antonelli and Hamilton.
The Italian Grand Prix runs at Monza on 4-6 September.
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