Why Norris needs to thank Antonelli if he wins drivers’ title in Abu Dhabi

Dubai: Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli has been at the receiving end of online abuse after the Red Bull pitwall suggested that he deliberately waved McLaren’s Lando Norris by at the Qatar Grand Prix that saw the championship leader take two extra points going into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend.

“Not sure what happened to Antonelli, looks like he just pulled over and let Norris through,” Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase said over team radio. Lambiase’s comments were echoed by Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko, who claimed it was ‘so obvious’. In his post-race interview, the teenager insisted it was not intentional and he made the mistake by trying to push too hard to overtake Williams’ Carlos Sainz for the podium.

Due to the abuse he received, Antonelli ‘blacked out’ his social media accounts and while Red Bull have since apologised for the insinuation, Antonelli wrote on his X account: “Thanks everyone for the support. Grazie a tutti per il supporto.”

Truth be told, the accusation seems unfair given the 19-year-old rookie sensation is having a brilliant first year, picking up 150 points and being just two points behind the man he replaced at the Silver Arrows, the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, with every chance to catapult him and jump to sixth in the drivers’ standings in Abu Dhabi.

Even so, it is an undeniable fact that Norris needs to thank the young Mercedes driver for his 12-point gap over rampaging Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, and not just for the two points he gained for passing Antonelli in Qatar to finish fourth. Over the course of what has been a scintillating Formula 1 season, Antonelli has denied Verstappen the chance to close in on the McLaren duo of Norris and Oscar Piastri on more than the odd occasion.

At the Austrian Grand Prix, Antonelli plunged into the side of Verstappen’s Red Bull after locking up his brakes into the third corner of the opening lap. Both cars sustained too much damage for the drivers to continue in the race, dealing a major blow to Verstappen’s title hopes. The Red Bull driver had started the race from seventh and had climbed up to sixth before being taken out, thereby handing then-leader Piastri a 61-point advantage and Norris a 46-point lead. Even a sixth-place finish — it is more likely Verstappen could have finished higher — would have ensured 8 points for the Dutchman.

Then more recently at the Brazilian Grand Prix, where Verstappen started from the pit lane and charged up the field only to see Antonelli’s Mercedes, on older tyres, holding him up and eventually denying him a second-place finish, thus costing him an extra 3 points.

A conservative estimate shows that the points Verstappen has lost either directly or indirectly due to the Mercedes driver comes to 13 and with Norris’ lead over the Dutchman being 12 going into the final weekend, it is safe to say that if the British driver wins his first world championship in Abu Dhabi — never mind the fact that the F1 website had, for some hours on Sunday, put 1 against the number of world championships already won by Norris — he will do well to invite the Italian youngster to dinner and thank him personally.