Kimi Antonelli a bona fide F1 title contender after Miami GP win | F1 | Sport

After two relatively stress-free wins in China and Japan, this was the victory with which Kimi Antonelli showed he has the nerve needed to perhaps become Formula One’s youngest ever champion. Three Grand Prix victories in a row have now given the 19-year-old an X-point buffer over team-mate George Russell.

And this was his most impressive victory yet, overcoming a slightly slow start to regain the lead and spending the second half of the Miami Grand Prix with Lando Norris on his tail. But despite the threat of the defending champion hunting him down, and a late gearbox issue which briefly tested his composure, Antonelli did not crack. Instead, he gave his clearest indication yet that he really might be ready to challenge the much more experienced Russell for this year’s title.

It was a rough weekend for the Brit who declared after Saturday’s Sprint that he does not like this Miami circuit at all. And he drove like it on Sunday, struggling to find anything near the pace his team-mate produced and finishing fourth, well over half-a-minute behind.

They all survived lap one which saw Max Verstappen spin dramatically, somehow avoiding all the cars that swarmed around his rotating Red Bull. It dropped the Dutchman to eighth, though, while Antonelli was also playing catch up behind Charles Leclerc who enjoyed another swift start to a race to take the lead.

It wasn’t long before the Monegasque seemed to move aside and let the Mercedes man through, but it was clear Leclerc knew what he was doing. Because he let Antonelli use up all his energy and then used the power he had in his own engine roar back past, before Norris also flew past.

And the defending champion did that just in time as further back, two simultaneous but separate smashes saw the safety car introduced. Isack Hadjar broke his suspension at the tight chicane and crashed, while French fans felt further frustration to see Pierre Gasly‘s Alpine resting almost on its side against the wall. It was flipping hell for Gasly whose car had rolled over after contact with Liam Lawson, ending both their races.

Leclerc led the restart but it wasn’t long before he was in Norris’ crosshairs. The Brit pulled the trigger on lap 13 in his bid to make it two wins in a weekend, and three Miami GP wins in a row for McLaren. And Leclerc continued to freefall while Lewis Hamilton also struggled for pace, an uninspiring performance overall from Ferrari.

But Antonelli reminded everyone he was still in this race with a perfectly-timed pit stop which saw him undercut Norris when McLaren pulled their man in for fresh rubber. The teenager used Verstappen, on old hard tyres and struggling for pace, as a buffer between himself and Norris when he took the lead to build a gap over a second to give himself the best chance of staying ahead for good.

There were 20 laps left when Antonelli’s panicked voice told his race engineer of a gearbox issue. Norris, smelling blood, was soon within the one second range he needed to activate his boost button.

But it didn’t help him to close the gap, which instead lengthened as Antonelli regained his composure. He’s now 20 points clear of Russell at the top, and it would’ve been more if Russell hasn’t gained from a Leclerc spin on the final lap which crocked his Ferrari.