Bizarre tactic: Kimi Antonelli drove deliberately slowly to secure victory

What a down-to-earth young man! Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli secured his eighth win of the season in Madrid and extended his lead at the top of the World Championship to an impressive 81 points. Yet after the race, he was far more keen to talk about Lando Norris (McLaren). Antonelli went on and on emphasising that he didn’t really deserve the win at all, and that Lando Norris should have been the winner at the Madrid circuit. Fair play and great respect for his rival.

Lando Norris fell back due to a Virtual Safety Car that came at an inopportune moment for him and problems during his pit stop. Kimi Antonelli overtook him and claimed victory. Afterwards, he revealed: because he was driving slowly, he was actually faster in the end.

Antonelli slowed down deliberately – and with foresight

Antonelli on the decisive seconds when Lance Stroll came to a halt and first a yellow flag, then a VSC was triggered: “For me, the timing was spot on. Bono (his race engineer Peter Bonnington, ed.) told me as I entered the final sector that there might be a VSC, so I eased off the pace. I deliberately slowed down a bit, just to see if we could catch the VSC before the entrance to the pit lane. And that worked out very well for me.” This allowed Antonelli to turn into the pits for a tyre change at the last second, securing the advantage – whilst Lando Norris was out of luck.

Antonelli aims to raise the bar even higher

Antonelli now leads his own team-mate George Russell by 81 points in the World Championship standings and is 101 points ahead of Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton, who retired from the Madrid race with a brake problem and came away empty-handed. It’s likely to be very difficult to take the title away from him now. Russell even admitted after the Spanish Grand Prix that, realistically speaking, he’s out of the running for the Drivers’ Championship.

But Antonelli remains calm: “I’m taking it one race at a time and trying not to get carried away. I want to enjoy it as much as I can and keep raising the bar. Because McLaren are very fast, Red Bull were quick with Max (Verstappen, ed.), and Ferrari were up there too. So it’s going to be tough. But of course we’re trying to do our best and deliver every weekend.”

Topic of the week

Spanish Grand Prix at the new Madring: track – hit or miss?

The people of Madrid had set their sights high for their city’s first Formula 1 World Championship race since 1981. But have the high expectations for the new Madring mixed-circuit track really been met?

Read More

TV Program

Live

Baku: 1. Freies Training

FIA Formula One World Championship

24.09.2026 - 10:15