The Mercedes driver visited the San Antonio Spurs and while chatting with the French star he confessed that he felt very close to the title. On Sunday in Austin he can be champion, in America there is also curiosity about the news from Ferrari
Kimi Antonelli landed in Austin well in advance of the United States Grand Prix which will take place over the weekend. The Formula 1 world championship leader took his time to best adapt to the time zone and even enjoyed a few hours of relaxation before getting back into his Mercedes. The Italian driver went to visit the training camp of the San Antonio Spursthe reigning Western Conference champion team that lost the NBA Finals last year against the New York Knicks. The Italian Mercedes driver has chatted and joked with some of the stars of the Texans franchise and in particular with the symbolic player of the Spurs, the very strong French ‘centre’ Victor Wembanyama. The cameras also immortalized an interesting chat between the two: Antonelli confirmed to the 22-year-old Transalpine that he and other members of the team will attend tomorrow’s Spurs’ first match of the seasonwho will take on the Oklahoma City Thunder at home. The discussion between the two phenomena, however, then moved on to F1 and Antonelli, speaking to Wemby about his season, let slip a Interesting ‘forecast’ from a World perspective. In fact, Antonelli will have his in Austin first match point of the season to win the title. Kimi has so far never been too unbalanced in his official declarations on the increasingly close possibility of becoming world champion, but with the French giant he made an exception. “The season it’s going well, I’m fighting for the title and it’s getting closer. So hopefully in two weeks we’ll close it. But we’ll see“Antonelli uses the term precisely “clinch it“, which in English indicates the arithmetic closure of the dispute. In short, if not in Austin, Antonelli’s belief is that Mexico City could really be the right venue for a historic celebration. That of the first Italian F1 world champion since 1953. Antonelli has 340 points and precedes his teammate Russell who has 238 and Ferrari driver Hamilton at 229. He needs 49 points in the next six races to become world champion. He is champion in Austin if he wins with Russell ninth or worse and Hamilton fifth or worse. In Mexico he would only need 101 points ahead of second, in Brazil 76.
The new Ferrari
On the SF-26 of Leclerc and Hamilton will debut the latest development package for 2026 in Austin. Narrower bellies and bottom modifications with the aim of increasing dynamic load and stability. Important answers will arrive in Austin, the goal is to take steps forward and maybe win a third grand prix in 2026 after the two triumphs of Hamilton in Barcelona and Leclerc in Silverstone which broke the incredible fast of 2025, a horrible year for the Maranello team. “What matters is to bring developments as soon as possible, we hope to grow more than our rivals with the innovations we will introduce” said Leclerc after the Singapore race, which ended in second place. Austin is a friendly circuit for Lewis Hamilton: the Englishman achieved five victories, three pole positions and nine podiums. And he won the world titles in 2015 and 2019 in America. Lewis must make amends for the mistake in Singapore when he did not obey the garage’s input to come in for a tire change, an error for which he later apologized to the team. From now until the end of the World Championship we will also experience an internal challenge within the Ferrari team: Leclerc and Hamilton will be focused on wanting to prove that they are better than their teammate. At the moment Lewis has 14 points more than Charles, but the road is still long.
