Eight Wins and Counting: How High Can Antonelli Climb?

Kimi Antonelli is three victories away from matching Lewis Hamilton’s best single-season win total, with nine Grands Prix remaining and bigger benchmarks still within reach.

Through the 2026 Spanish GP, round 14. Calendar checked September 23, 2026. Grand Prix victories only; Sprints excluded.

Eight wins already. Nine races still to come.

Antonelli’s victories at Monza and Madrid have brought some remarkable season totals into view. Hamilton’s personal best is 11. Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel each reached 13. Max Verstappen pushed the record to 19.

Those numbers give the rest of Antonelli’s season another layer of interest. How close can he get, and what would matching them actually mean?

Hamilton’s 11 is three wins away

Antonelli’s eight victories came in China, Japan, Miami, Canada, Monaco, Belgium, Italy and Spain. He’s won more than half of the 14 Grands Prix held so far.

Three more victories would bring him level with Hamilton’s highest single-season total. Four would take him beyond it.

Hamilton reached 11 wins in four different seasons: 2014, 2018, 2019 and 2020. That repetition is part of what makes the benchmark interesting. It was a level he returned to across several years, rather than one exceptional campaign.

For Antonelli, matching it would require winning one-third of the nine remaining races. That’s a clear target, though the arithmetic says nothing about how easily those victories might come.

The benchmarks ahead

This comparison uses each historical driver’s highest single-season Grand Prix win total, with one entry per driver.

Max Verstappen: 19 wins
2023

Michael Schumacher: 13 wins
2004

Sebastian Vettel: 13 wins
2013

Lewis Hamilton: 11 wins
2014, 2018, 2019 and 2020

Kimi Antonelli: 8 wins
2026, through 14 rounds. Season ongoing.

These are selected benchmarks, not a complete ranking. Nigel Mansell won nine races in 1992, and Nico Rosberg won nine in 2016, so there are other milestones between Antonelli’s current total and Hamilton’s 11.

Schumacher and Vettel share the next target at 13. Five more wins would put Antonelli alongside them. Six would move him beyond both of their personal bests.

Their seasons reached the same total in different ways. Schumacher won 12 of the opening 13 races in 2004, then added another victory in Japan. Vettel finished 2013 by winning every one of the final nine Grands Prix.

Antonelli has nine opportunities left himself. That makes Vettel’s closing run a useful illustration of the scale involved, without making it a forecast.

Why 13 wins wouldn’t mean the same season

Calendar length changes the comparison.

Schumacher’s 13 victories came in an 18-race season, a win rate of 72.2%. Vettel’s came across 19 races, or 68.4%. Verstappen won 19 of 22 in 2023, an extraordinary 86.4%.

Even Hamilton’s four 11-win seasons produced different percentages. He won 57.9% of the races held in 2014, 52.4% in both 2018 and 2019, and 64.7% in 2020.

Here, every percentage uses the number of Grands Prix held, rather than the driver’s individual starts.

Antonelli’s current eight from 14 works out to 57.1%. If he finished this scheduled 23-race season with 13 wins, his final rate would be 56.5%.

That would equal Schumacher and Vettel in victories, while representing a smaller share of the season. Both facts matter. A matching total is a meaningful achievement, but it doesn’t establish equal performance or driver ability across different cars, rivals and eras.

Seventeen is the ceiling

On the current calendar, Antonelli can finish with a maximum of 17 wins. Reaching it would require winning all nine remaining Grands Prix.

Verstappen’s 19 is therefore out of reach this season, even with a perfect finish.

The nearer milestones are more useful to follow: three additional wins to equal Hamilton, five to equal Schumacher and Vettel, six to surpass their totals.

Baku offers the first opportunity to turn eight into nine. Antonelli already has a season worth measuring against exceptional company. The remaining races will determine how much closer he gets.