(Motorsport-Total.com) – Ralf Schumacher believes Kimi Antonelli is capable of winning the 2026 Formula 1 World Championship title. And the expert says this not only because Antonelli leads the Drivers’ World Championship after the first three races of the season. Even before the season opener, he named the Italian as his personal favorite.
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“When I said that back then, some people wondered what Schumacher had been smoking,” the six-time Grand Prix winner chuckles in an interview with Sport Bild. “But Kimi already made a very strong impression during the test drives. He has now confirmed that.”
Antonelli won two of the first three races of 2026 and is currently nine points ahead of his much more experienced Mercedes teammate George Russell in the World Championship. “It is of course still very early in the season, but I still see Kimi as the favorite,” Schumacher emphasizes.
His advice to the just 19-year-old: “He must use the momentum now and must not tense up. That was Oscar Piastri’s undoing as a young driver last year.” Indeed, a certain comparison with Piastri cannot be dismissed.
The Australian was also in an internal World Championship battle at McLaren in 2025 against a more experienced teammate. At one point, Piastri was a whopping 34 points ahead of Lando Norris in the World Championship, but as is well known, the Briton became World Champion in the end.
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Schumacher sees the pressure more on Russell
In the second half of the season, the Australian made mistakes that Schumacher attributes to tensing up in the title fight. “But I see less of that danger with Kimi. He has two very experienced people at his side in Toto Wolff and ‘Bono’,” he explains.
Team boss Wolff has been following Antonelli’s career since the junior classes, and race engineer Peter Bonnington led Antonelli’s predecessor Lewis Hamilton to a total of six World Championship titles with Mercedes. Schumacher therefore currently sees the pressure more on George Russell.
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“George is showing nerves. He sees that Toto Wolff has a closeness to Antonelli and that Kimi will be the driver of the future for Mercedes. The only way for George to stop that would be if he beats Kimi significantly – but currently we are seeing exactly the opposite,” he explains.
Nevertheless, Schumacher does not expect the duel between Antonelli and Russell at Mercedes to escalate at some point this year. “I don’t think so. Toto Wolff is too experienced for that. He has the team under control and knows exactly what matters,” says Schumacher.
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