Horner says Antonelli has earned Mercedes number-one status with dominant 2026 title charge

Christian Horner has declared that Kimi Antonelli has earned the right to be recognised as Mercedes’ number-one driver, pointing to the 20-year-old’s dominant 2026 season as justification for the team to prioritise him if a title fight tightens.

Antonelli holds a 102-point lead over team-mate George Russell with six rounds remaining, and can seal the championship at the United States Grand Prix in Austin. The Italian has recorded 14 podiums this season, including eight wins, in only his second year in Formula 1 — a campaign that has comprehensively reversed the pre-season expectation that Russell would be the title contender.

“Ultimately there will be one driver that achieves superiority on track and they’re both given the same chance, they’re both given the same equipment, but you earn the respect and a status within a team by what you do on a track,” Horner told Autosport. “It’s like Kimi Antonelli at the moment. He’s earning that position in that team by what he’s doing on circuit and if there came to a tight fight between him and a rival from another team, the team would have to take a stance.”

Horner, who stepped down as Red Bull team principal after two decades in the role, drew on his own experience of managing intra-team rivalries to make the case. He cited the 1986 Williams season as a cautionary tale, when Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet split the team’s resources and ultimately allowed McLaren’s Alain Prost to take the drivers’ title despite Williams winning the constructors’ championship.

“Otherwise they risk losing a championship in the way that Williams potentially did with Mansell and Piquet against Prost all those years ago,” Horner said. “So it’s just how you set your stall out to go racing.”

The former Red Bull boss acknowledged the difficulty of managing two competitive drivers under the same roof. “It’s very hard to keep everybody happy all the time. You’ve just got to be honest and with the principles of ‘okay, what are the objectives here’. At the end of the day, the team is what comes first and the drivers are ultimately contractors. To promise both drivers that you can be able to win a world championship is unrealistic.”

Horner’s Red Bull teams operated with a clear hierarchy during their most successful periods, first behind Sebastian Vettel and then Max Verstappen — both of whom won four world titles. He contrasted that approach with McLaren’s decision to treat Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris equally in 2025, a strategy that nearly allowed Verstappen to snatch the championship.

If Antonelli wins in Austin, he would become Formula 1’s youngest world champion.