A triumphant march
The triumph of Andrea Kimi Antonelli in Monza, historic for countless reasons, had a very concrete impact on the world championship standings. Now the Italian seems to have definitively beaten the competition from Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris – who have respectively slipped to -76 and -96 in the standings – and the only rival left in the running for the championship victory is his teammate, George Russell. But the #63 of the Brackley team – who in fact has already verbally declared his surrender – is well 66 points behind Antonelli and lost the incredible opportunity in Monza to close the gap by taking advantage of Kimi’s grid penalty. Certainly, to imagine at this moment a world champion other than Antonelli at the end of the season requires a great effort of imagination.
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Toto Wolff and Antonelli himself, who is particularly superstitious, will forgive us, but at this moment more than the ‘if’ Antonelli will become world champion, the question seems to be more the ‘when’. The reasoning to be made in this sense is not simple, because there is still no clarity on what the calendar of the last GPs will be. If – as seems likely – F1 will not race in Qatar and Abu Dhabi and will only replace the final Yas Marina race with the appointment at Imola, Antonelli would have a further advantage because there would be one less race available for his pursuers to catch him.
An early celebration
Certainly, continuing at this pace, Antonelli is destined to bring the Drivers’ World Championship back to Italy well before the last GP of the season. Maintaining a 66-point lead, the title would arrive with two races to spare before the end of the championship: this means that the celebration could come between Interlagos and Las Vegas, depending on whether the calendar drops to 22 GPs or remains with the 23 currently scheduled events. Two not bad places to celebrate: Brazil is the homeland of Ayrton Senna, a driver Antonelli has always indicated as his idol; and Las Vegas… well, ask Max Verstappen if it’s so bad to win a title on the Strip, since he did so in 2024. The only problem, in this sense, could be represented… by Kimi’s age: at 20 years old, in the USA it is still forbidden to drink alcohol.
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But looking at the performance trend of the #12 Mercedes this year, it cannot be ruled out that these 66 points of margin over second place will increase in the coming weeks. So far Antonelli has gained an average of 5 points per GP on Russell: maintaining this trend would allow him to close the games even earlier, between Austin and Mexico City, always depending on how many races will actually remain to be held this season. In short, okay prudence but between the end of October and the end of November tell your friends to keep their weekends free: there could be something big to celebrate.
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