- Kimi Antonelli starts the Mexico City Grand Prix fourth on the grid, sick all week and tense about a title that needs only two points, per Motorsport.com.
- The 20-year-old Mercedes driver says a high fever and stomach problems left him “very bad” on Thursday and that he is “low on energy” now.
- His plan for the night before the race is 10 hours of sleep, helped by melatonin and the arrival of his family.
The Championship Leader Who Needs a Good Night’s Sleep
“I’m going to bombard myself with melatonin, so hopefully I will sleep a good 10 hours.”
That is how Kimi Antonelli described his Saturday night plan, and it is not the usual talk of a driver one result away from a world championship. The 20-year-old Italian finished qualifying for the Mexico City Grand Prix in fourth place, behind Lewis Hamilton, George Russell and Charles Leclerc, and he used his time with the media to list what went wrong.
“I’m just going to try to relax as much as possible,” he said. “My family has just arrived, so it’s going to be good to have them here.” He added that he wants to “disconnect as much as possible, go to sleep, and then I’m ready for tomorrow.”
Antonelli has won nine races in his second Formula 1 season. By his own account, the Mexico City weekend has not been easy.
A Fever That Cost Him Media Day
Trouble began before the cars hit the track. On Thursday, Mercedes told the media that Antonelli would skip the day’s media duties. A team spokesperson said the championship leader was “feeling under the weather” with a “viral illness” he was recovering from, and the FIA excused him from the obligations.
“The team has taken the decision to allow him a day of rest, to support his recovery,” the Mercedes statement read. “This is a precautionary measure and does not currently affect his participation in the remainder of the race weekend.”
Antonelli filled in the detail after qualifying. His illness was “very bad – I had a high fever and stomach problems,” he said. Mercedes reserve driver Frederik Vesti, the 2023 Formula 2 runner-up, was scheduled for his seventh career Free Practice 1 outing in Russell’s car, though a reserve call-up for either Mercedes driver was unlikely.
Recovery has stopped short of full strength. “Now I feel OK, just low on energy,” he said. He also said he had not been sleeping well in recent days, and he hopes to wake up with “more energy” on Sunday.
Where Qualifying Slipped Away
The day began with a sign of speed. Antonelli finished final practice only 0.001 seconds behind Lando Norris. Qualifying went differently. He ran half a step behind his teammate Russell and could not find the confidence he wanted.
“I felt decent in Q2, especially on the used tyre,” he said, “but then on the Q3, on the new tyre, I struggled to put a lap together, just to find the grip.”
The two Mercedes drivers took different approaches to the final run. Antonelli used “build” laps, adding a preparation lap before each timed run to bring temperature into his tyres. Russell skipped that lap on his last Q3 attempt, and the decision carried him to the edge of pole. Hamilton then beat his former teammate by 0.009 seconds for his first Ferrari pole and the 105th of his F1 career.
Antonelli pointed at his own condition and his own lap. “I think today, tiredness was a big factor, but as well, I think I didn’t really put the lap together,” he said. “I did a lot of mistakes here and there, so obviously it’s disappointing.”
Then came the line that stood out most. “I’m aware that I haven’t been driving well. I was already going into qualifying and I didn’t feel great, and I felt a bit low on energy. It’s not an excuse, but for sure, it doesn’t mean my finest.”
The Noise He Cannot Switch Off
Illness explains part of the dip. The rest, Antonelli said, is the sound of the championship following him everywhere.
“I’ve definitely been a bit more tense than usual, especially when you keep hearing, wherever you go, any time of the day, the same thing,” he said. “And people telling me that it’s already done, and knowing myself, I’ve been trying to block as much as possible this noise.”
He kept going. “But it hasn’t been easy, and definitely I’ve been a bit more tense today.”
The numbers explain the chatter. After his win in the United States Grand Prix, Antonelli stood 123 points clear of Russell with 125 available over the final five rounds. His ninth win of the season in Austin did not quite finish the job, and Mexico City is the next chance. He needs two points. A ninth-place finish or better makes him champion regardless of Russell’s result. A 10th-place finish is enough unless Hamilton wins. If neither Russell nor Hamilton wins, he is champion wherever he finishes.
Russell is the established Mercedes star, and a second-year driver has surpassed him this season. The 123-point gap to Russell is the number behind the chatter that Antonelli says he keeps hearing.
What Ricciardo Sees in a 20-Year-Old Leader
Daniel Ricciardo knows something about arriving young and fast. The Australian made his F1 debut at 22 and retired from the championship at 35. On the Beyond The Grid podcast, he said a friend asked him about Antonelli, and his answer was “ignorance is a superpower.”
He meant it kindly. “I’m not trying to be mean to him at all,” Ricciardo said. “Being young is a superpower, being ignorant and not having been so exposed to the world and things like that.”
Ricciardo pointed to his own first year at Red Bull Racing in 2014, when he joined the main team after Mark Webber’s retirement and partnered Sebastian Vettel. He took all three of the team’s wins that year and outperformed the reigning four-time world champion. “everything’s easy and it comes easy,” he said of that period, “and it’s just, ‘Oh wow, I’m winning, cool, I’ll just keep winning, cause I’m the best’.”
Then he described what the years add. “over the years you’re just going to accumulate baggage,” Ricciardo said. He described Antonelli as sitting at “that sweet spot where he’s obviously very talented, very fast, but he hasn’t yet really acquired any baggage.”
For Ricciardo, that burden came later, and he linked it to his 2018 decision to leave Red Bull. Questions about that choice kept returning, he said, and “by the end I had to dig very deep to find something where before it was just easy.” Ricciardo’s regret over leaving Red Bull is covered in full elsewhere on the site.
Saturday’s remarks add a footnote to the theory. Antonelli says the noise reaches him, and he says it has made him tense.
What Sunday Asks of Him
After the United States Grand Prix, Antonelli said he planned to keep the same philosophy. “I’m going to approach it with the same mindset, just trying to have as much fun as possible, trying to hopefully fight for another win,” he said. “But it would be best to finish on a high, and that’s the goal.”
The Mexico City race gives him a plain checklist. A good start comes first. “It’s a long run into Turn 1, so it’s going to be important to get off the line well, and hopefully we can gain a couple of places,” he said. He added that Mercedes will have to stay out of trouble at Turn 1, which is always “very tricky.”
He is honest about the pace. “I think the race pace is still not as strong as Ferrari, but I think we can still do well,” he said. Mercedes also saved a set of new tyres for the race, and he hopes to use them to move forward.
A title in Mexico City would arrive with four races to spare and would beat Vettel’s 2010 record as the youngest champion by more than three years. Before any of that, Antonelli needs sleep, a clean first corner and two points. His Saturday admissions show a 20-year-old who can carry a championship lead and still say plainly how tired and tense it has left him.
