Escape to Victory
The victory achieved on Sunday at the Spanish GP pushed Kimi Antonelli to an impressive 81-point lead over his closest rival in the standings, who is currently his teammate George Russell. Such a margin with still eight or nine GPs to go (depending on what happens in the Qatar and Abu Dhabi races) puts the young Italian talent of Mercedes in a very secure position.
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The man himself, understandably, continues to preach calm, but in the entire history of F1 only in 1976 has an equivalent lead (the scoring systems were different) not been converted into a title win and for the well-known reasons involving the unfortunate Niki Lauda.
After the Madrid race Antonelli found himself in a press conference alongside the last two world champions: Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. The journalists present asked the Dutchman and the Englishman for a comment on Antonelli’s season and on what apparently seems like an unstoppable escape towards winning the World Championship, and both wanted to emphasize the great work done so far by the 20-year-old from Bologna.
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So many compliments
“Comeback? I’m certainly not thinking about a comeback – said Verstappen addressing Antonelli, who was teasing him on the subject – but Kimi just has to keep doing what he’s doing. In short, he’s fantastic. He’s really doing great. He shouldn’t stress too much about it and I don’t think he is. He’s simply giving his best, he’s confident and gaining more and more experience. He’s still young, still at the beginning of his career, but he’s flying and everything is working well. So he shouldn’t complicate things too much and he isn’t. He has many capable people around him who know what he needs. Everything is going well”.
Similar comments were reserved for the Mercedes talent by the reigning champion, Lando Norris, who also launched a small jab at his compatriot George Russell. The #63 of Mercedes is in fact perhaps the main loser of the season so far, considering he was indicated by everyone before the start as the absolute favorite to win the title: “Max said it well – Norris observed – Kimi is leading by 80 points because he’s doing an incredible job. He’s beating a much more experienced teammate, who is also a very respectable driver, so I don’t want to give him any advice because he’s doing an incredibly good job at just 20 years old. He’s really phenomenal. I think it’s great to see someone so young doing such an incredible job and, very likely, carrying it forward and winning the championship. He’s been impressive since the first race this year. He’s made very few mistakes and doesn’t drive at all like he’s in his second year in F1, that’s for sure. So yes, it’s very nice to watch”.
