MONTE CARLO \u2013 Formula One championship-leading teenager Kimi Antonelli intends to race free of worry during this weekend\u2019s Monaco Grand Prix, as he bids for a record fifth consecutive victory.<\/p>\n
As his Mercedes teammate and title rival George Russell ramped up the pressure on him by saying the \u201ctitle is his to lose\u201d, the 19-year-old Italian insisted he was unfazed and will stick to driving to win, without creating any chaos.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know I can win (the drivers\u2019 title), but I don\u2019t want to think about that and to lose my head,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe season is so long so I\u2019ll continue to drive as if I have nothing to lose \u2013 because I can\u2019t lose something I haven\u2019t achieved yet!\u201d<\/p>\n
Antonelli goes into the Monaco weekend with a 43-point lead over Russell having reeled off an unprecedented four wins, including his maiden F1 triumph, after his teammate triumphed in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Mindful of the need to keep relations with Russell and team boss Toto Wolff in good repair, Antonelli stressed that his father Marco, a motor racing driver and GT sportscar team boss, keeps his feet on the ground.<\/p>\n
Asked about Russell, he told Sky Italia that they wanted to treat each other fairly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to cause chaos and of course we don\u2019t want to upset Toto. When we race, we race to win and we want to be the best… For sure, we race for ourselves \u2013 but also for the team,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The pair clashed in last month\u2019s Canadian Grand Prix where Antonelli complained of \u201cunfair\u201d racing by Russell and called for a penalty before Wolff intervened to stop his team radio outbursts.<\/p>\n
That race saw Russell, the pre-season title-favourite, bounce back to lead their battle before he was forced to retire with electrical problems.<\/p>\n
Russell, meanwhile, said he would not be pressured.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy mindset is to enjoy every single race, try and win every single race \u2013 the same as I\u2019ve done this whole season. Even if he\u2019s the one who\u2019s getting the results at the moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Briton also dismissed suggestions that Mercedes favoured Antonelli.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is racing and 2,000 people\u2019s bonuses are based on the constructors\u2019 championship, not the drivers\u2019,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In other news, the Las Vegas Grand Prix has secured its place on the F1 calendar at least until 2037 with a new 10-year contract extension.<\/p>\n
The first race was held in 2023 and has drawn hundreds of thousands of visitors every November. It has generated more than US$3 billion in economic impact for southern Nevada over its three editions.<\/p>\n
The fourth edition is scheduled for Nov 19-21 and will be the 20th of 22 rounds of the 2026 season. AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTE CARLO \u2013 Formula One championship-leading teenager Kimi Antonelli intends to race free of worry during this weekend\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-477195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}