Max Verstappen was brilliant in cruising to Singapore victory… but it’s just a matter of time before wonderkid Kimi Antonelli clinches his maiden title, writes JONATHAN McEVOY
Kimi Antonelli, at 20, is the Formula One champion-elect and nobody can get near to him. It’s all over and the rest can switch their engines off right now.
Yes, Max Verstappen won the Singapore Grand Prix, his 73rd triumph but his first here under the lights of the city track. It was another demonstration of the Dutchman’s brilliance, a dominant win from pole that was never in doubt in a largely boring race.
Antonelli, the great aggregator from Bologna, finished third, separated from Verstappen by Charles Leclerc of Ferrari.
So strong has Antonelli been this season that he can secure the title in Austin, Texas, home of the next race, a week on Sunday. He will do it in the end, wherever he does it, having made practically never a slip even on his average days.
And George Russell, the British drive who carried every hope of accomplishing that dream in the other Mercedes, is gone. Game over. Long blown away. He is 102 points back, and that is nowhere you want to be when your lifetime’s work is on the line.
He finished ninth yesterday. He is resigned to his predicament, though he will not quite so readily admit to it. With six races remaining – if Formula One’s owners follow through on the idea of concluding the season in the Middle East.
Max Verstappen celebrates his second win in a row after a dominant drive
Verstappen successfully handed an early move from Charles Leclerc (right) to stay in front
If they switch to Imola to fill in for the potential absence of one or two rounds in that region of the world after bombs fell on Saudi Arabia yesterday, he remains condemned to disappointment. It’s relevant. This is in brackets, as it were, but he needs to move teams or forever serve as a player in another man’s script – as Antonelli’s Jeeves.
As for Verstappen’s tremendous victory, by 10 seconds over Leclerc, this must be saluted. It reflects the fact that his Red Bull team are on a march and, and that their engine, newly made under the auspices of Christian Horner, who set up the enterprise several years ago before leaving last season, is a huge success.
Lando Norris was fourth and Lewis Hamilton sixth, a place behind Oscar Piastri of McLaren.
Antonelli came up one place from where he started on the grid – he is streets ahead in the overall fight and on the day he did what he needed to do to secure his advantage in this regard. He needs to be 126 points in front after Austin, the next race, to clinch the championship. Nearly a job done at barely out of his teens.
Hamilton was in a war of words with Ferrari as he vied with Leclerc for his track position, deciding to stay out on old tyres, a policy that he later acknowledged did not work, and that he was the one in the wrong.
‘Sorry boys,’ he admitted. ‘I let you down today with that strategy. My call, and I lost us valuable points. I’ll try to make up for it in the next one. A painful lesson, but I take full responsibility for the decisions I made.
Kimi Antonelli, champion elect, added 15 points to his tally and can win the title at the next race
‘Not every call will work out and I can accept getting it wrong but I’m sorry for the team for the points we lost today. They put so much into every weekend and I wanted to deliver more for them. Great job with the pit stop though.’
Hamilton’s Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur said: ‘We asked him to pit. Don’t blame the team guys. Clearly on the radio he apologised and said, “It was my call”. He decided not to stop behind the virtual safety car but we would have been P2 and P3.
‘We were not sure we could go to the end so we chose to stop under VSC. There was a radio message. The driver has apologised that he let the team down.
‘It was very clear. We were P2, P3 on track, we called two of our guys to pit behind the VSC, one of our guys said, “no I prefer to stay on track” or he missed pit entry. Don’t blame the team.’
Lewis Hamilton admitted to a mistake in strategy that cost him a place on the podium
The triumphant Verstappen had no such concerns or recriminations. He said: ‘For sure I can dare to dream (of the title)… but at the same time, I know it is very close, I know it is there – but I need to make sure that I keep doing the best job I can, to go out there and win and perform the best I can.
‘This weekend I don’t feel like I have driven that well. I feel like I could have done a better job.
‘I am looking forward to being back in Austin but, at the end of the day, if I don’t do my job, the result won’t come.’
‘It is very difficult, so it is hard to say if I will be in the fight in Austin. I will just take it race by race and we will see how it goes there.
‘The car has felt a lot nicer from Baku onwards, a lot more balanced. The way that we have turned that around and the progress we have made makes it feel nicer.
‘When you can add podiums and wins too, that’s nice. We are not in the championship fight and that is why I think until the end we will try to have a good time and hopefully add more wins.’
There will be more for him before the end of the year, but the momentum is with Antonelli, drop by drop, increment by increment, and he will be winning the crown – possibly before the month is out.
