Antonelli’s magical moment
After finishing 2nd in the first race of the world championship in Australia, the rest of the season has smiled always and only on Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The 19-year-old Mercedes driver claimed his first F1 victory in China, then climbed to the top step of the podium three more times in a row. A positive streak of results that has brought the Bolognese to the top of the world championship standings with a 43-point lead over George Russell, his teammate who, in the last GP in Canada, had to retire due to technical problems.
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Villeneuve’s advice
But just a few days before the end of the Montreal weekend, a former Canadian F1 driver like Jacques Villeneuve issued a warning to Antonelli: not to get carried away by enthusiasm at a particularly positive moment in his career. Interviewed by F1 TV, the 1997 world champion was very clear on the matter: “He must stay calm, he must not get too carried away by enthusiasm – he said – it is a very dangerous thing. When you think you are untouchable, that is when you make mistakes, and you end up with a retirement, as happened to Russell, or with an accident, you lose 25 points, the gap changes drastically and suddenly you start doubting yourself. This is the biggest risk. Right now, he is driving on the limit every lap, to the point that you think ‘Wow, he manages to keep the car on track’, and things are going well, everything is going the right way.”
“It will not always be like this – he added – so, how will he react when something goes wrong? This will be the key. But right now, he is faster than George. He has overtaken him. The important thing for the team is that George wakes up a bit and starts believing in himself again.”
For Villeneuve, therefore, the biggest risk is that the current dominance could vanish in a championship characterized by reversals: “A season is like a swing – he added – there is a period when everything goes well, and suddenly something goes wrong. After one or two races, you move on. This is the danger. And people think: ‘Oh, you will never win again’. And then the other also starts to believe it, and it is a continuous swing. We will see how it ends.”
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