Kimi Antonelli has denied that he has established himself as the \u201cnumber one driver\u201d within Mercedes this year.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Italian driver has enjoyed a highly successful campaign so far and is the heavy favourite to win the 2026 title, having grown his championship lead to 81 points over Russell.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Antonelli has often had the upper hand on his team-mate this year, with Russell struggling to get up to speed with the new car build under a fresh set of regulations.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Earlier this month at the Italian Grand Prix, theories were raised that Antonelli was given preferential treatment when he was given fresh tyres under a virtual safety car, while Russell was kept out.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Despite his healthy lead at the head of the standings, Antonelli has denied that he is now the number one driver at the team.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin Mercedes, I feel like there’s no number one driver in the team,\u201d Antonelli told media including RacingNews365.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team, rightly so, they want to give us both the same opportunities.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course, George is an incredible driver and he’s been on form in the past two races.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cSo for sure, I don’t feel like there’s a number one driver.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
[Article continues below]\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tAntonelli doesn’t feel like ‘true leader’ at Mercedes<\/p>\n
Despite his significant deficit to Antonelli in the standings, Russell too has voiced the opinion that he is on equal terms with Antonelli.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Antonelli’s rise to the forefront of the F1 grid has come in just his second season, taking many by surprise.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
But as he closes in on a maiden title, he does not expect Mercedes to give him additional help by sacrificing Russell’s chances.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cThe team treat us the same way, they give us the same opportunities. So for sure, I don’t feel like I’m the true leader,\u201d\u00a0he said.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we’re both on the same level and that’s the way [it is].\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli has denied that he has established himself as the \u201cnumber one driver\u201d within Mercedes this year.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-899237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}