They’re talking about whether Antonelli can actually win the Formula 1 championship. They use his early results—like starting on pole and winning races—to judge how realistic it is.
In Formula 1, pole position means you start the race from the very front. It’s earned by being fastest in qualifying, and it usually gives you a better chance to lead early.
F1 fantasy is a game where you choose F1 drivers, and you earn points based on how they do in real races. Your ranking just shows how good your picks were compared to other players.
“Toto” is a nickname for Toto Wolff, a key leader in Formula 1. When he backs a young driver, people pay attention because he’s influential at a top team.
Karting is where many F1 drivers begin racing when they’re kids/teens. The discussion is that being great in karting doesn’t guarantee instant success in F1.
Dropping positions means you fall back in the race compared to other drivers. In F1, falling back early can make it much harder to get back to the front.
A safety car is when officials temporarily slow everyone down because the track isn’t safe. When it happens, the cars get closer together, and that can completely change who has the advantage.
Term
fight your drustle
The transcript sounds like it’s describing a moment where the driver has to manage acceleration carefully. The point is that pushing hard while staying in control is tough in racing.
FP3 is one of the practice sessions before qualifying and the race. Teams use it to try out car settings and learn how the tires and handling will work.
Term
misqualifying
“Misqualifying” here means qualifying didn’t go the way it should—usually because the car didn’t get the right time. That can leave a driver starting much further back than planned.
Ferrari is one of the most famous F1 teams in the world. In this segment, it’s mentioned as another possible team for a driver who could win the championship.
Lando Norris is an F1 driver. The hosts are saying he did especially well near the end of the season, when results matter most.
Concept
mount a comeback
A “comeback” means things weren’t going great, but now the driver is expected to start doing much better again. In the championship, that usually means catching up in points with stronger results.
In F1, the championship is based on points across the whole season. Near the end, every result matters more, so drivers feel more pressure—because one mistake can cost them the title.
A championship campaign means the whole season of races where drivers try to earn enough points to win the championship. It’s about doing well repeatedly, not just one great weekend.
Term
narratives of like, you're only as good as your last race
They’re talking about how people tend to overreact to the most recent race. In F1, one weekend doesn’t always tell you how good a driver (or team) really is.
A sprint in F1 is a shorter race held during some race weekends that determines additional points and affects the grid for the main Grand Prix. Winning a sprint can boost a driver’s momentum and championship position.
An “upgrade question mark” means they’re not sure if the car updates will actually make the car faster. In racing, new parts can help—or sometimes not as much as hoped.
Max Verstappen is one of the best-known F1 drivers. The “wave” idea here means he’s so strong that it can shake up who wins and who has leverage for the next season.
Your teammate is the other driver on the same team. In F1, teams don’t always treat both drivers exactly the same, so who your teammate is can affect chances to win.
Wheel-to-wheel racing means two cars are racing right next to each other. It’s the kind of close driving where they’re fighting for the same space on the track.
A world championship battle means the season is close enough that more than one driver can still win the title. When it’s tight, teams have to think carefully about strategy because every race result matters.
A number two driver is basically the teammate who’s expected to help the main driver. That can mean not fighting as hard for position if the team wants to protect the lead driver’s title chances.
A dive bomb is when a driver brakes really late and goes for the overtake right at the last moment. It can work great, but it’s risky because it can easily lead to contact if the timing is off.
“Regs” means the rules that teams and drivers have to follow. When the rules change a lot, the cars behave differently, so it can be easier for newer drivers to catch up because everyone is learning the new setup.
A “championship challenge” means the driver is actually fighting for the overall season title, not just having occasional good results. It’s about staying near the front and scoring well race after race.
“Ground effect” is about how the car gets pushed down to the track using air under the car. In that era, the car’s grip can depend a lot on how well the team sets up that underbody airflow, so drivers who master it often do better.
“Equal machinery” means both drivers have cars that are basically the same. People use it to say the comparison is fair—so the result is more about the drivers than the cars.
They’re talking about a time when one F1 team’s car was so much better than the rest. When that happens, it’s easier for that team’s drivers to win the championship, even if other drivers are very talented.
A “title fight” is the season-long race to win the championship. It’s when several drivers are close enough in points that more than one could still win.
LIVE
Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 Podcast with Matt and Tommy.
We are still in person, which means we are still touring Australia.
We have our final show literally this evening before we head back to the UK.
It's been an awesome trip.
I have, obviously, we've missed our set ups, so it's very cozy, isn't it?
It's very easy to jump on Formula One news and chat F1 when we're there.
But it's also been great to be in person, Tommy, in doing all our shows.
It absolutely is.
Yeah, we're currently in Perth, which is the furthest city away from any other city in the world.
So we are very, very far from our bedrooms right now.
But we're slightly closer to our time zone because it is, in fact, just seven hours,
isn't it, rather than nine.
Right, so today we are going to explore Antonelli's actual chances of winning the world championship.
And I think it's a very interesting topic because the first four rounds have been
phenomenally impressive from Kimmy, especially the last three races.
Can't believe he's got the stat that no other driver holds, or record, in fact,
of having his first three consecutive pole positions be all race wins like that.
And I think he matched, was it Senna and Schumacher, or for the qualifying poles?
For the qualifying.
No one had ever done that conversion for race wins.
Yeah, so yeah, we've had that with the pole positions.
And I think it was Hakkinen and I want to say Damon Hill off the top of my head,
that have won the first three, but no one have won those first three from pole position as well.
As soon as he got that first pole, he's like, right, let's get some first up and dominance
going. And wow, he's done an unbelievable job.
So Kimmy Antonelli, 19 years old, can he win the Formula One World Championship
in just his second Formula One season?
Let's dive into why we think he can win it to begin with, Tommy.
Yeah, OK, so, well, first of all, I predicted him.
So, of course, you know, I'm going to be smug about that because I can be after four races.
Go on, tell everyone your F1 fantasy ranking because, you know, a Mez will tee you up before you.
OK, OK, 38th out of 2 million players in F1 fantasy, which is a great start.
I'm 15,000th.
Not so great.
And yeah, Kimmy Antonelli, before testing, I predicted him and I'm sure a lot of people are
going, well, of course, you know, it was a Mercedes driver.
But I'm just going to go through the little poll we did of the fans and how many people
actually thought Kimmy Antonelli was going to win the championship.
And this was before testing?
Before testing.
Yeah, so in January, we got, you saw our predictions that we made, our 2026 predictions.
And 35 percent of the fans said that George Russell would win the World Championship.
And 0.9 percent of fans thought Kimmy Antonelli would win the World Championship.
So yeah, it was a long shot.
And, you know, part of the reasons were kind of looking back to what Piastri managed to do.
And if that car was really good, no one really thought Piastri was going to be able to do what
he did. It was all about Lando Norris.
And we're kind of seeing a very similar story at the moment.
Kimmy's obviously, you know, been hyped, particularly by Toto as this generational talent.
He's kind of born to race, it feels like.
He's just, you know, his dad's a racer, kind of feels very similar to Max Verstappen of just like,
you are a racing driver, you will be a racing driver.
Like just from the moment he was born, you know, destined to be in Formula One and a racing driver.
And I think that's going to give him, you know, a huge opportunity because he's got the backing
of Toto, of course.
Toto really wanted to get him into Formula One.
He took a big risk taking him into Formula One to replace Lewis Hamilton.
And so far, you know, he's leading the world championship.
And, you know, if he does it for Toto to find the new Lewis Hamilton, to replace Lewis Hamilton,
and then for Kimmy to do a Lewis Hamilton and win in the second season would be an unbelievable story.
Toto backing, of course, in Kimmy's junior careers and careers, career.
But Toto backing in Mercedes Formula One, that's the question, right?
That's what's up in the air is how far will Toto go to try and get Kimmy over the line
to win the world championship?
Because it's all well and good Toto backing him in the junior karting days,
but that's not going to help him in this season.
But that is, I guess, a question further down the line.
We had that last year with Oscar and Lando.
Are they going to have to favour one of them with Max Verstappen on a charge?
These are all sort of unknowns at the moment.
And for me, you know, there are many reasons why Kimmy Antony can win around his talent,
around his skill, around what he's already shown as a 19-year-old.
You know, to think that his first outing in a Formula One car ended in the wall
and, you know, the amount of question marks, criticism that came of him.
And now already in the second year of his Formula One career,
he's able to put together race wins.
And it's not even, I would argue it's probably the hardest race wins
he's had to put together already this season.
Because he's fallen like a stone in most of the races.
I think you've been saying, Tommy, in the live shows,
he's dropped 20 positions in those first six, I guess, races, including sprints,
and not gone any.
Of course, he's had pole a few times.
But he could have easily crumbled.
Yes, I will say Japan was lucky.
Japan was fortunate for him, because without that safety car,
Oscar Piazza, he was going to probably win the race.
But apart from that, you know, he's been able to have that presence of mind
to be able to fight your drustle at times
and to beat the drivers that are able to get him off the line,
which is not an easy feat.
It's not like, oh, just because you're in a Mercedes
means you're going to win the race.
It's not that easy.
Yeah, I think we could have easily seen Kimmy Antonelli, you know,
when he crashed and almost misqualifying and crashing an FP3 in Australia,
it was a kind of oh no moment.
This is, can Kimmy challenge George for the world championship?
And I think the answer then was maybe not, he's not ready.
And for him to, even after the first race,
if you'd have said three races later,
Kimmy Antonelli would be leading the championship,
he'd won three on the bounce from pole position.
George wouldn't have got a podium in the last two.
I think people would think you're insane,
because the turnaround that he's managed to do from that kind of FP3 crash.
And so far, nothing's really phased him.
Of course, the main thing here is that it's very,
very early in the season still.
It is indeed.
Another, we kind of mentioned about the Toto backing.
Tommy, should we talk about the Instagram post?
Of course, controversy that Mercedes went ahead and thought,
that'll be a good idea to upload.
So for context, basically, Kimmy Antonelli visited the factory,
which is very normal thing to do.
You see drivers visiting the factory all the time on their own.
They don't always go with their teammate.
But the problem that Mercedes had was they have this tagline,
which we've questioned before about this tagline,
because they used it a lot when Lewis Hamilton was leaving the team.
And we said it kind of undermines what Lewis is doing
when you're kind of celebrating what Lewis Hamilton has done.
And the tagline is, every dream needs a team.
And to post that picture of Kimmy on his own with all the team,
like, yay, he's leading the championship,
I think it's not that deep, but I also understand why,
if you're a George Russell stan, for example,
you're seeing that there's already talk about Toto, Kimmy being Toto's boy and all this,
starting to feel a little bit like, okay, is this another Oscar-Piastri moment?
Or is this someone that's not getting the backing of their team, basically?
Because, yeah, you look at that and I understand why it's kind of riled up
George Russell fans, but I personally don't think it's that deep.
It's just a bad post with a tagline they've already used before.
I agree it's not that deep.
I don't think it's the case of Mercedes trying to send a message to the fans,
being like, this is Kimmy Anthony's World Championship, deal with it.
But I also do question the sort of strategy behind that post,
because everyone is so sensitive and hyper aware of these kind of things
after Papaya rules last year and the whole McLaren ordeal.
No surprise that the fans have gone really.
What? So George isn't there?
They could have phrased it and sort of shaped that content in a very different way.
Kimmy Anthony is visiting the factory, he's World Championship leader,
all this stuff can be celebrated in a way that doesn't look like a team photo without George.
Like that's what it was at the end of the day.
So I get it, if you're a fan of George Russell, you'd think, what's going on?
Why are you making it seem like it's a team post when it's not?
Because there's only one of the drivers there.
Yeah, they're so desperate to use that slogan probably for their,
you know, that they've used this before and it's part of their tagline for their
team and like almost like a marketing buzz thing.
But there's a time and a place for it and it's probably a little bit
tone deaf to use at this moment, I think.
Yeah, you can't say team and then not have half the drivers there.
You know, I know it's only two, but it's still George is a big part of the team.
So I think we've touched upon why we think he can win it, a brilliant driver.
But why will he not win the World Championship?
If we get to the end of 2026 and George Russell or another driver,
maybe from McLaren or even Ferrari become World Champion this year,
what would be the reasons for it?
And I think for me, when I think about Kimi Antonelli,
we don't know what he can put together fully in a whole season.
Can he be consistent enough when the pressure ramps up?
We've seen it so many times where drivers,
you know, they are a little bit more relaxed at the start of a season
because you just think, well, there's loads of races to go.
But when you get to that final few races, the final half of the season even,
it starts to ramp up.
That's why Lando was so incredibly impressive last year
because he stepped up when it mattered.
And that was what caused him to win the World Championship
because he was able to beat Oscar Piastri in the final part of the season
when it really mattered.
Of course, Max was mounting a huge comeback as well,
but Lando got it over the line.
For Kimi, you know, he has to look over his shoulder.
It is, of course, his teammate, George Russell,
who I firmly believe is going to mount a comeback.
It's just a matter of when, not if.
And then it's how does Kimi deal with that mentally
to be like, I was in the World Championship.
Maybe he loses the lead of the World Championship.
If we then enter McLaren in as well, it's going to be a lot for him to think about.
And that's a lot to put on the shoulders of a 19-year-old
with one season and a bit experience.
Yeah, Kimi is doing unbelievably well.
And you don't want to take anything away from what he's done
because it's absolutely unbelievable.
The three wins from three pole positions, you can't discredit that in any way.
But it's a very different ball game when you get later in the season
and that World Championship is within touching distance.
We saw a very similar situation with Piastri last year,
where, you know, the pressure mounts, particularly after, you know,
I think it was Xanvor, people saying, well, that's it.
Oscar's won the championship. It's done.
And you get into those final races.
You know, you mentioned Lando and getting it over the line,
but even that wasn't easy.
And, you know, he's an experienced driver that's been in Formula One for a long time.
Experienced driver but inexperienced in a championship fight.
Exactly, yeah.
And that's something we'll see how Russell deals with,
but I do think he's in a better position, you know, Russell,
with the experience that he's had in Formula One.
But even the experienced drivers like, you know, Nico Rosberg and Jensen Butten,
even their championship campaigns, you know, they just got it over the line.
There was a lot of pressure at the end,
and they were kind of seasoned veterans at that point.
So it's going to be, I do think Russell is being completely underrated
with everything that's going on so far.
He's had some poor luck.
Kimmy has been the better driver.
I don't think you can deny that.
But Russell has had some bad luck as well.
And, you know, even in Japan, the Miami thing is concerning,
but it is one race.
And I think we need to wait till we see a normal race,
because Formula One, we're so quick to jump on these narratives of like,
you're only as good as your last race.
Right now, people are like, oh, Russell's washed.
Kimmy Antonelli is amazing.
But say we get to Canada and George dominates both races, wins the sprint.
Everyone would just be saying, oh, George is winning the championship easily.
So George is definitely not out of this.
And, you know, he's the one that's got that experience
of delivering a consistent season like he did last year.
Exactly.
I think that George Russell's having the sort of Lando experience right now
after Lando in Zanvo in 2025, where he lost a huge amount of points.
Everyone was saying it's Oscar Piazza to lose now.
And, of course, Lando ended up winning the World Championship.
All it takes is one Kimmy Antonelli mistake, one crash into the wall.
George Russell wins, and all of a sudden George is leading the World Championship.
And the whole tone shifts.
And that's where that big question mark is for me with Antonelli.
I still think he has a mistake in him.
And as for George, you know, we're saying that Kimmy was a better driver.
And I think he has been over the four races,
but it's also not been a level playing field to some degree.
I think George did a great job in China, for example,
where he was able to bounce back from that qualifying issue.
Japan, however much you want to take from what Mercedes and George said around,
he was basically locked into a setup that he couldn't do anything about.
So therefore, he was pretty much hamstrung.
Miami, yes, absolutely needs to be put in the bin and incinerated.
How bad that performance was from George and just how he could not get on top of whatever
Miami is for him, whether it's a grass court or a clay court, whatever.
Go and look up the Toto Wolf comments, if that makes no sense to you.
But I still think that, you know, we're heading to Canada now.
Canada's the next one where George was phenomenal.
He won the race last year.
And I still, yeah, I really do believe that this is going to be so much closer than people expect.
George is not washed by any stretch of the imagination.
And you can't even discount McLaren as well, because they showed some brilliant pace
in Miami and should have probably won both races.
But there's, again, another upgrade question mark to be answered as well,
of how much further will Mercedes be down the road when we get to Canada.
So let's now head to some results of a poll that we put out.
We basically asked you, who's going to score more points?
George Russell or Kimmy Antonelli?
Well, we have 25,000 votes and 72% of you say Kimmy Antonelli is going to score more points
this year, which is an overwhelming amount of support.
That's insane.
When, if you're going to put me on the spot right now, I would have voted George Russell.
Okay, interesting.
Yeah, I think Kimmy can do it, but that it being an overwhelming landslide on Kimmy
really does kind of back up what I said earlier about the fact that you're only as
good as your last race in Formula One and people thinking that George is kind of out of it.
Because that is an insane flip that way.
We were talking about what we saw with George Russell,
and one that went through those kind of results at the start of the season
and how he was completely overwhelming the championship favourite.
And Kimmy was just absolutely nowhere.
And now Kimmy Antonelli has won three races and suddenly,
yeah, Kimmy Antonelli is winning the World Championship.
I don't think it's that close.
I can see Antonelli winning the championship.
I think he's got what it takes to do it,
but I'm not 72% sure that he's winning the World Championship.
I think it's still like a 50-50 chance.
Okay, but if you have to choose, Tommy, put you on the spot.
Who are you voting for?
Kimmy. I think Kimmy can do it.
You only want that because of your World Championship question.
I know, exactly.
Which you only did because you didn't want to be boring and choose George Russell.
Exactly.
So, you know, we have to remember that, everybody,
before we start saying Tommy's the Oracle,
let's now get to a question or a few questions from our wonderful Patreons.
Firstly, we have one from Lex Wakeman.
If Kimmy goes on to win this year's title, what does that mean for Russell?
Does he stay on to try and win it next year with Mercedes?
Or does he leave and try and win with another team?
I think this is very, very simple.
George stays unless there is a whole Max Verstappen wave once again,
whether he wants to go and play in the Silver Arrows and George is ousted out.
That's the only way I see George Russell not being there next year.
I firmly believe that, from George's perspective, there's no reason for him to leave.
Even if he loses the World Championship,
even if we see a small seasoning of total wolf favoritism to Kimmy Antonelli,
Mercedes have the fastest car.
I firmly believe they'll have the fastest car come the end of the year as well.
And so that is a title-winning car.
And George would be silly to go anywhere else.
Agreed on the fact that you'd be insane to leave,
even if Kimmy does win the World Championship this year.
I think if he does, George still needs to stay and see how it goes for another year.
Yes, if Kimmy Antonelli and Mercedes are really strong for the next three or four years
and Kimmy Antonelli keeps winning the World Championship against George,
then George maybe thinks he needs to move on, particularly if we get a situation.
We don't know yet how the teammate position is going to stay,
because when you had Hamilton and Bottas,
you absolutely knew that Lewis Hamilton would get the backing.
It would be him.
We don't know how that's going to play out yet.
Do we see a situation where, if the McLaren drivers are coming in close,
that they don't want to back Russell and to give Antonelli a chance,
but then equally, if it flips the other way and Russell isn't getting a chance,
maybe he does need to think, I need to move on and get out of here,
because he's been there with Mercedes.
This was meant to be his championship without sounding disrespectful to Kimmy,
but I think so many people thought it was going to be his championship,
and this is his big opportunity to do it.
If he doesn't do it, I think he still needs to stay.
If there's a few championships that he ends up losing,
then maybe he does think about moving,
but I think it all comes down to how much backing he's going to get from his team.
And also how far Mercedes are down the road,
because even if he loses two or three championships to Kimmy on the bounce
and still has the possibility of staying in that second seat,
surely you would stay in the place you're going to get the fastest car.
You'd still back yourself, wouldn't you?
Exactly, yes.
So let's go to another question from S. Mitchell 8.
How much longer can Kimmy and George evade each other in regards to wheel-to-wheel racing,
and would they avoid coming together?
We saw a little taste of them kind of being together on track for the first time in Miami,
and boy, did they give each other a lot of space.
That screamed Toto Wolfe in their ear and maybe before the race,
or just before the season and how they're allowed to race each other.
It felt like there was something in their contract
that was going to cost them a lot of money if they came together.
100%. They gave each other such a wide berth.
They didn't bother racing at all.
That's not going to happen if there's three rounds to go,
and it's still 20 points or 10 points between them for the world championship.
So I think that if this happens, they're going to have a collision at some point.
I'm sorry, I will put myself on record and say it's going to happen,
because the two of them have contact in them,
and I could see it definitely happening.
Me too, for sure, especially if they are quite closely matched,
and again, the McLaren situation is a bit unknown
as to whether or not they actually have a car to challenge.
But if it very much is a Kimmy versus George world championship battle,
then yeah, Mercedes are going to have to allow them to fight.
They can't, as much as Toto would want to back Kimmy and say,
look, George, you're number two driver, my guy,
you're going to have to sit back and just let Kimmy enjoy the show.
That's just not the way it's going to go, and George will not allow that.
So yeah, I firmly believe, I think George is a great will-to-will racer,
as much as he has a bit of a reputation for crashing or whatever.
I don't think that's the case personally.
I think he is a really good will-to-will racer.
Kimmy, incredibly fast, haven't seen as much, of course,
it's only his second season as to what the limits are for his will-to-will racing,
but I can't wait to find out.
That's the beauty of F1.
He loves a dive bomb.
Yeah, let's see these two battle on track.
Let's go to a question from people on Patreon member LossyDawg.
George has constantly been lauded as a world champion in waiting for the last few years.
Does this put more pressure on him than Kimmy?
This is a difficult one.
I think they both have levels of pressure, maybe slightly different ones.
Everybody, as you kind of said earlier, Tommy, expected George to maybe romp away with this title.
So that is an expectation, but then for Kimmy's side,
it's more about the fact of him being in that position and then all the eyeballs shift to you.
So I don't think it's very much, this person has so much more pressure than the other,
because Kimmy's not seen as some kind of bus driver.
He's a very talented kid, 19 years old.
So if George was to lose to him, it's not like it's the most insane thing,
like, oh my God, George, you fumbled the bag,
because Kimmy is a talent that is still growing.
So for me, I think they both have very different kinds of pressure, but still pressure.
So it's not easy for either of them, I don't think.
It's an interesting discussion, this and a kind of take, that we talk about the pressure of Antonelli
and how he's a young kid, it's only a second season,
and you almost kind of ignore the pressure on George Russell, that this is his chance.
And you mentioned Lando and how that was his big chance.
He made some mistakes that year, and I kind of mentioned the Nico Rosbergs and Jensen Buttens
and things like, it's a different, just no matter how experienced you are,
it's completely different to be in a world championship battle for the first time.
And I think a lot of drivers will back that up from, it's such a different ball game to,
we lauded George's consistency last year, but he was driving against,
he wasn't in a world championship winning car, and he was driving against Kimmy Antonelli,
who was learning the ropes, and absolutely, he was just very consistent and Kimmy Antonelli wasn't.
When it's a world championship on the line, he has that pressure of everyone just thinking,
particularly at the start of the season, well done, George, for the championship.
And that is, that is a pressure because people in a weird way kind of didn't give Kimmy a chance,
and I wonder if that's kind of helped him at this stage.
I also, sorry, were you going to say that?
No, I was going to say whether that is the case later on in the season,
but at this stage, maybe it is less pressure on Kimmy because there is no expectation around him
to kind of, at the start of the season, to win the championship, and everyone thought it was George's.
Look, I think it's tough for both drivers. I don't know how we quantify levels of pressure for
either of them. I'm wondering whether, because of course, when we look at Kimmy versus George
last year, it was the end of a set of regulations. This brand new set of regs, we spoke about this
on the run up to the season, we wondered, would this kind of help the drivers with less experience,
because they've got less to unlearn when we go to these brand new cars in 2026?
I do wonder if, yeah, this has helped Kimmy to be able to mount a championship challenge, because
there's so much going on in these cars that's so different, and, well, we've heard from Max
exactly what those cars are kind of like, formillary on steroids and so on and so forth,
but I do wonder if that's something that has worked in Kimmy's favor.
Yeah, definitely. We saw the fact that it's a reset, and I think that has helped Kimmy. George
obviously had a lot of years in that regulation set, and of course, George was very strong in that
kind of a ground effect era. Of course, his biggest accolade has been the fact that he's
beaten Lewis Hamilton two of the three years that he was there against it.
Can we actually talk about that? Because that in itself started to do the rounds, didn't it?
Yeah, his comments.
Yeah, George Russell saying that had he been in Formula 15 years sooner, then
it's not word for word what I'm saying, but essentially he kind of hinted at the fact he
could well have had a couple of world championships in him.
Which is true.
Which is absolutely true. I saw it doing the rounds, people discussing it,
and I did not see the same sort of, some people calling it arrogant or arrogance,
that George just thought that he would be able to beat Hamilton in equal machinery,
but that happened. That literally happened. He beat Hamilton twice.
When he was at Mercedes, George did not come at that saying,
I should be a two-time world champion if I joined five years earlier.
It was more a case of like, yeah, it might well have happened. I felt like tone and just generally
understanding that he wasn't being what some people were suggesting him to be.
Yeah, agreed. It never gets written properly. It never comes across the way it's being said
when you just take the context of someone making an Instagram graphic and saying,
George Russell says if he was in five years earlier, he'd won two championships.
There's so much more context to that that he gave in that interview, and he's right in saying,
because he said exactly that, that five years ago before he joined, Mercedes were winning
everything. They were so dominant that Hamilton was winning the championship easily,
just beating Bottas. It's not to discredit Lewis Hamilton, but George beat Lewis Hamilton in a
couple of years that he was against him. He was just saying that, but it wasn't an arrogant way
of being like, yeah, I'd be a two-time world champion, which people will take quotes and then
put them down on a graphic, and it looks way worse than it was. I agree. I think it's taken out of
context and people making it sound like he's being arrogant, which I didn't think it was.
Yeah, much bigger than it actually was. So we're back here, George. Who knows what would have happened
if you joined five years earlier? And finally, question from P1Patreon member Mike Five-Track.
If another driver, for example, Lando or Oscar, gets into the title fight, do you think Kimmy has
it in him to hold off more than just George? I really hope that Emma Claren gets in the title
fight because we saw last year that the Lando and Oscar battling last year, we spoke so many times
about, oh, all Oscar has a very different title fight when we're talking about Lando and Oscar,
and they don't have to fight Max Verstappen. It's a very different title that they're just
focusing on each other, but then Max did arrive on the scene. And I think that is going to be
fascinating if Lando or Oscar or even both of them join that championship fight. Anyone else?
Yeah, why not? Anyone else? No, no, no, I can't think of anyone else actually. Max, maybe Max.
Oh, sorry, you meant Charles. Yeah, thanks. And I think that that is going to be such a fascinating
thing because then we do see a case of do Mercedes need to back someone, then the pressure gets even
more, you know, we'll see what the lead that either of them have at that stage when or if
McLaren do manage to catch up. And that is the thing that's I think potentially going to make
this title fight. And I really hope happens even more spicy is a McLaren getting into the mix
or even both of them because that's going to make a Ferrari. Yes, thanks, Tommy. Sorry, I know you
were going to say that. I just thought I'd cut in just to make sure you did well known team at
developing for once in your life. But don't you're a podcast and you're a podcast, you're on a podcast.
And so you absolutely do want it because it adds so many different narratives and elements to
the season. It's I just love seeing it, right? The Max last year, the comeback was just unbelievable.
I don't think we'll see a 104 point deficit be eaten into as much as what what Max did last year.
But yeah, if you do have a Lando and Oscar causing problems, getting that whole Mercedes
internal discussion going of do we back a driver, we can then chat about it. And there's just so
many more conversations to be had when there are two different teams fighting when it's two drivers
from the same team. It's like, oh, you know, they can kind of manage it the way they want to and
and then who do they back? And then you get that scenario where we even saw some people thought
we saw a little bit in China. I don't know how deep it was and whether it's going to this but
Kimmy covering George at the start and things like that. And when we get a situation where if it is
just them two, they will start fighting each other not thinking about anyone else. But if someone
else is in the mix, that's exactly what happens where you bring someone else into play when
they're just focusing on each other. And because it's exactly what happened last year, we could see
a repeat. Absolutely. All right, that is it. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in to this
random hotel lobby that we're recording this podcast, had a random person come behind us and
go to the toilet. Absolutely love to see that. There's loads of other toilets in this destination,
but no problem. Also, if you were the random, I imagine viewers or coming to the P1 live show
that were literally on the stairs over there waving at us earlier. Hi, thanks for getting involved,
because that was quite funny. But anyway, we'll see you soon. Tommy, final thoughts, please?
Final thoughts. Bring on some more racing, because it feels like a long gap again. And I want to see
how this spicy championship battle continues, because I think Kimmy's making it a really
exciting one that I didn't expect. So yeah, bring it on. Hell yeah. Let's do it. See you soon. Bye.
About this episode
Kimi Antonelli’s early F1 run is dissected as the hosts weigh whether it can translate into a realistic World Championship win. They point to a record start—“his first three consecutive pole positions be all race wins”—and note he’s “leading the world championship,” while also stressing luck and pressure. Fan polls rate his title chances at 0.9%. They debate consistency, teammate dynamics at Mercedes, and how late-season momentum, one big mistake, or even 2026 regulation changes could swing everything.
With F1 about to resume, Kimi Antonelli leads the F1 world championship after a hugely impressive first four races. But can he actually win the world title in just his second season?
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