Drivers starting on the COTA front row have won 11 of the 13 Formula 1 races held at the Circuit of the Americas. Six winners started from pole, five started second, and only two drivers in the track’s history have won from further back. That matters more than usual this weekend. Kimi Antonelli can only clinch the 2026 world championship in Austin by winning the race, so his shot at the title may come down to Saturday’s qualifying.
The statistic: 11 of 13 winners started on the COTA front row
F1 has raced at COTA every year since 2012, apart from 2020, when the pandemic wiped out the race. Here is where every winner started:
| Grid slot | Wins | Years |
|---|---|---|
| Pole | 6 | 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2025 |
| 2nd | 5 | 2012, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2022 |
| 4th | 1 | 2024 (Charles Leclerc) |
| 6th | 1 | 2023 (Max Verstappen) |
That works out to 84.6 percent of COTA winners coming from the front row. Starting second has been almost as good as starting on pole. The run uphill to Turn 1 is long and wide, and second place has a real chance to take the lead there. In 2018, Kimi Räikkönen started second and beat polesitter Lewis Hamilton to the first corner and won. In 2022, Max Verstappen won from second after Carlos Sainz, the polesitter, was hit at Turn 1 and retired.
The two exceptions came on sprint weekends
Both wins from outside the top two are recent ones. In 2023, Verstappen lost his best qualifying lap to track limits, started sixth and still won. In 2024, Leclerc started fourth, made it past the front row at Turn 1 and led a Ferrari one-two.
Both races were sprint weekends, which give teams one practice session before parc fermé locks in their setups. A car that is slightly off in qualifying but strong over a race distance has more chances to recover on that format. This year’s Austin weekend runs the standard format, with three practice sessions, qualifying on Saturday and no sprint. Front-row starters have won every one of COTA’s standard-format races.
Why the COTA front row matters for Antonelli’s title shot
Antonelli arrives in Austin with 340 points to George Russell’s 238. As we laid out in how Antonelli can be crowned champion in Austin, he clinches on Sunday only if he wins while Russell finishes ninth or lower and Hamilton fifth or lower. A second place isn’t enough, so Antonelli needs the race win, and COTA’s history says winners almost always start in the top two.
His own record suggests he’s very good at converting the front row. Antonelli has taken six poles in 2026 and won from five of them: China, Japan, Miami, Monaco and Belgium. The only pole he didn’t convert was at Silverstone, where a five-second track-limits penalty dropped him to 15th. Put the two trends together and a title clinch in Austin probably starts with an Antonelli pole on Saturday.
The problem is the driver he’d most likely have to beat to get it. Verstappen has won at COTA four times (2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025), including from pole last year. He also arrives from Singapore, where he took his first pole and first win at Marina Bay after going 0-for-9 there. With a Red Bull in the top two on the grid, history says Antonelli’s win is far from certain.
What the stat doesn’t tell you
Thirteen races is a small sample, and every COTA win before 2026 came under older technical rules. This year’s cars, with their new power units and active aerodynamics, may race differently at Turn 1 than anything in the table. The stat also covers only half of Antonelli’s problem. Even a perfect pole-to-win weekend only makes him champion if Russell and Hamilton both have bad races, and as the three conditions for an Austin clinch show, that part is out of his hands.
What the stat does show is that if Antonelli is going to be champion this weekend, it will most likely start on Saturday. If he doesn’t qualify in the top two, COTA’s record says the title will probably go on to Mexico City, and the youngest-champion record he’s chasing will have to wait at least another week.
Image via Curt Smith from Bellevue, WA, USA via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Sources: COTA grid and result data via Lights Out Blog, with the 2025 result from Formula1.com and the 2022 grid from the official classification. Antonelli’s 2026 pole record is from season results through Singapore.
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