Kimi Antonelli retorts to George Russell: "It makes no sense"

Andrea Kimi Antonelli appeared calm and charged at a press conference in Monte Carlo ahead of the Monaco GP scheduled for the weekend. The Mercedes driver, the leader of the overall Formula 1 standings at 19 years of age, returns to the track where he made a mistake in qualifying last year: “Last year for me is in oblivion. I’ve grown a lot since then and understood a lot of things. Plus there were problems with how the car had changed technically at that time and, in addition, all the pressure that came with that. This year will be a different story,” he said swaggeringly.

Antonelli also gave a straight answer to teammate George Russell, who had said in Canada that only Kimi could lose this World Championship: “I smiled when he made that comment. Because to talk about these things, so early, it makes no sense. If you think about it, in the end, how do you lose something you don’t have? I didn’t win the championship, so in the end, what do I have to lose?”

According to Antonelli, Ferrari is the favorite on the Principality’s narrow roads, “They go hard on the brakes, it’s also a car that goes well with the unevenness of the track. Also looking at the different generations of cars, Ferrari has always been strong here, even when it has struggled so much in other races. Usually they always marry well here.”

The race pace will be crucial: “It’s difficult to overtake and at many tracks the undercut makes the difference, but here it can be the opposite, which is the overcut. Warming up the tires is not easy, this year is much more difficult than last season. We also have a harder range of compounds this weekend than last year. So yes, it will be important to start and stay first, but you also need to have a good pace to open the gap when needed.”