Perhaps there will be a point at which a teenager, leading the Formula 1 World Championship, begins to feel the pressure… but it hasn’t happened yet. Or, if it has, then cheerful, laid-back Kimi Antonelli is a better actor than he is a driver… and on the basis of Saturday’s performance at Spa-Francorchamps, he’s a very fine driver indeed.
Antonelli made it back-to-back poles, qualifying three-tenths clear of Max Verstappen but, of greater significance, half a second up on team mate George Russell. With the weather set fair, strategy in Spa looks like being proactive rather than reactive, but given the length of lap, it’s not a race with much margin for error: pit on the wrong lap and it’s a full 7km before you get another opportunity.
