{"id":697777,"date":"2026-05-27T19:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T19:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/697777\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T19:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T19:47:12","slug":"kimi-antonelli-not-thinking-about-f1-title-despite-43-point-lead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/697777\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli not thinking about F1 title despite 43-point lead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli<\/a> says he isn\u2019t thinking about a potential world title just yet, as he pulls away in the standings with at least 17 rounds remaining.<\/p>\n

Antonelli has won the last four grands prix consecutively, with his last victory coming in a Montreal race where he had a breathtaking duel with team-mate George Russell<\/a> before a power unit failure took the Briton out of the contest.<\/p>\n

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As a consequence, Antonelli\u2019s lead in the championship ballooned from a virtual 11 points, when Russell led the race, to 43 points \u2013 a larger gap than was ever witnessed in the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

However, asked if he thought he had got a bit of breathing space now, the 19-year-old replied: \u201cYeah, but to be fair, I\u2019m not thinking about [the] championship. I\u2019m just focusing on race by race. I think it\u2019s still very early to talk about that.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd of course, now I have this gap but that doesn\u2019t mean that I can relax and just take it easier. Instead, I need to keep levelling up and keep raising the bar because it\u2019s not going to be easy and competitors are getting closer, and also George is super quick. So definitely I\u2019m just going to try to focus on myself and enjoy the driving and trying to really drive as fast as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes\"Andrea<\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Antonelli has cause to be cautious. After he outqualified Russell four times in a row, his elder regained the upper hand in both qualifying sessions in Canada \u2013 the gap happened to be 0.068s both times<\/a> \u2013 and their performance levels were closely matched throughout the weekend. So, the Italian sophomore might have the right mindset.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI mean, he\u2019s clearly doing a great job,\u201d fellow Montreal podium finisher Max Verstappen<\/a> said. \u201cAnd of course, a championship is long and they\u2019re won by just being consistent, not making mistakes. But he knows that, so every weekend you just need to try and maximise, try and be better than your team-mate, and then I\u2019m sure that he has a good chance. But long way to go. But what he\u2019s doing right now is working really well.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Verstappen did not contend for the world championship until his seventh F1 season, Lewis Hamilton<\/a> was thrown in at the deep end in 2007 as he battled for the title as a rookie against McLaren<\/a> team-mate Fernando Alonso<\/a> and Ferrari<\/a>\u2019s Kimi Raikkonen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sat next to Antonelli in the post-race press conference, the seven-time world champion views the youngster\u2019s situation as healthier: \u201cFor me personally, 2007 was the one I was fighting for. It was a lot.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was a little bit older than you, I was 22. It feels like it was just different back then. I don\u2019t think I had the same support system that he has, for example, today in a place that I worked at and worked in.<\/p>\n

\u201cToto did a great job of surrounding you with the right support, and I definitely didn\u2019t feel that. The team were nice and everything, but there wasn\u2019t the right elements around to support you, to help you stay stable and guide you. And it was pretty intense, especially in my first year. But I wouldn\u2019t change it for the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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To read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli says he isn\u2019t thinking about a potential world title just yet, as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[16007,49,48,578,576,577,3024,25251,3761,82],"class_list":["post-697777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-antonelli","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-kimi-antonelli","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}