Formula 1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli has shrugged off suggestions by his Mercedes team-mate George Russell that the 2026 title is now his to lose.
Antonelli currently holds a 43-point advantage over second-placed Russell, who was the pre-season favourite, after four wins on the bounce inside the opening five rounds.
It comes after Russell suffered a costly retirement from the lead in Montreal, which he reckons now means Antonelli is in pole position to claim Mercedes’ first drivers’ title since Lewis Hamilton in 2020.
“Right now, it’s his to lose. He’s so many points ahead,” said Russell after the power unit failure last time out. “But the pressure is off, go out, enjoy every single race, try and win every single race. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
Whether Russell is consciously trying to offload any title pressure directly onto the 19-year-old’s shoulders or not, Antonelli has shrugged off the notion that the title is his to lose.
“No, to be fair, I don’t really give way to that line, because it’s so early in the season, still 17 more races left and it’s still very, very early to think or talk about the championship,” said Antonelli ahead of this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix.
“I try to do my best, whenever I go in the car, I try to maximise the result, and then we’ll see where we end up at the end of the season. But I also think it’s difficult to think about losing something when you don’t even have it. I didn’t win the championship. How can I lose something that I didn’t even achieve?”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
Alongside the technical challenges of the 2025 ground-effect Mercedes, Antonelli’s biggest lesson of last year’s rookie campaign was dealing with the outside pressure and expectation across a densely packed European season.
It included two draining home weekends in Imola and Monza as two of the more challenging weekends of his fledgling career.
Fresh off collecting the Lorenzo Bandini Trophy last week at a busy event in the town of Brisighella, close to his home town of Bologna, Antonelli vows the intense scrutiny from his Italian fanbase won’t be knocking him off his perch this time.
“I don’t feel that much pressure,” he insisted. “I feel pretty relaxed about the situation because it is still very early on into the season, and I just want to keep on doing what I’m doing, trying to raise the bar and trying to win as much as possible.
“Of course, I know expectations are growing, and as I’m Italian myself, I know how emotional we are and how excited we can get about things.
“But it was a great event and it’s incredible to see so much support. But I’m going to try not to get carried away by these expectations, I’m just going to try to stay focused on what I have to do in the process, and then try to deliver the best result possible.
“Of course, George is a super strong team-mate, and he will make my life very hard, but on my side, I just try to deal with it the best way possible in every situation.”
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