{"id":477913,"date":"2026-10-27T06:44:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T06:44:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/477913\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T06:44:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T06:44:16","slug":"kimi-antonellis-austin-win-points-to-potential-dominance-in-2027-not-just-this-year-orlando-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/477913\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli\u2019s Austin win points to potential dominance in 2027, not just this year \u2013 Orlando Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JAMES ELLINGWORTH<\/p>\n

Victory in Texas didn\u2019t just put Kimi Antonelli on the verge of winning the Formula 1<\/a> title. It gave an important signal he could repeat the feat next year.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Antonelli and Mercedes had been struggling with a package of car upgrades that often seemed more like downgrades as Max Verstappen<\/a> and Red Bull took advantage to win back-to-back races<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But Antonelli\u2019s dominant win<\/a> from pole position at the Circuit of the Americas on Sunday showed he\u2019s now confident of getting the best out of the car over a full race distance at a pace Red Bull and Ferrari largely couldn\u2019t match. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll this time putting so much work into bringing this new package and finally seeing the result is very pleasant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Singapore earlier this month, Antonelli said there was only a \u201cvery, very small\u201d window of performance to unlock the new design\u2019s benefits before it became skittish and unpredictable. <\/p>\n

Now the car is working as intended, he says there\u2019s more to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some places, I would say, still not as much as we expected, but in other places it is delivering very well,\u201d Antonelli said. \u201cWe\u2019re still struggling a little bit in low-speed with front locking, but overall, I feel like the package is finally starting to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

With much smaller regulation tweaks<\/a> coming for 2027 compared with the sweeping changes implemented this year, what teams learn from late-season developments can have a direct benefit next year.<\/p>\n

Only one of Mercedes\u2019 drivers is seeing the benefit. George Russell was at a loss for his \u201crubbish\u201d pace as he finished eighth in Texas. A five-second penalty didn\u2019t help, but Russell told Sky Sports he was clueless about the rest of the yawning gap to Antonelli.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully there are some answers somewhere but at the moment I don\u2019t have them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Russell has less experience with the upgrades after the team put him back on the old package in Singapore to make a side-by-side comparison.<\/p>\n

Verstappen\u2019s still a threat after Red Bull developments made his set up more predictable, but the car is slow off the line at the start of the race and it\u2019s costing him. Verstappen started second alongside Antonelli but spent his first lap under attack from Charles Leclerc as Antonelli zoomed off into a lead that was never seriously under threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe start definitely is something we\u2019ve improved massively,\u201d Antonelli said. \u201cWe were nowhere at the beginning of the season, and now we\u2019re good, so that\u2019s definitely one less thing to worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full auto racing coverage here<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JAMES ELLINGWORTH Victory in Texas didn\u2019t just put Kimi Antonelli on the verge of winning the Formula…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,8645,154],"class_list":["post-477913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-motorsports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}