Jacques Villeneuve calls Kimi Antonelli ‘lucky’ after he got away with ‘a lot of mistakes’

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Jacques Villeneuve believes Kimi Antonelli, despite his mistakes, has an edge over George Russell in their increasingly lopsided title battle.

Antonelli’s win at the Canadian Grand Prix managed to derail all the momentum Russell built during the course of the weekend, including a win in the sprint race.

Unfortunately for Russell, his battle with Antonelli got cut short due to a power unit failure, resulting in him not finishing the race.

Antonelli and Russell’s battle stressed Mercedes out, as the two consistently fought each other, leading to some frustration among both drivers.

But in the end, the reason Kimi Antonelli managed to get the win while George Russell didn’t, came down to one factor, according to Jacques Villeneuve.

READ MORE: Marc Priestley says Kimi Antonelli was ‘out of control’ before dramatic George Russell incident

Jacques Villeneuve says Kimi Antonelli must thank ‘luck of champions’ for Canadian GP win

Speaking on the Canadian Grand Prix post-show, Jacques Villeneuve marvelled at Kimi Antonelli besting George Russell yet again.

He noted that Antonelli does make a lot of mistakes due to his reckless driving style. But unlike George Russell, he has the ‘luck of champions’ that allows him to get away with these mistakes and still continue winning.

“It is interesting to see the difference in between the two drivers. Antonelli is definitely faster than Russell right now. He has been for a little while.

“He’s much more aggressive, so he pushes more. He’s more on the edge. He brakes a lot deeper as well, but he makes a lot of mistakes.

“What he has going for him is that he has that luck of champions, where everything turns out in the right direction.

“He almost took his teammate out when he misjudged the braking there into the chicane yesterday as well.

“So he’s always a little bit over the edge, and somehow it works out. That’s how you end up winning races and championships.”

READ MORE: Martin Brundle warns Kimi Antonelli about ‘driving angry’ after Canadian GP radio outburst

Are Kimi Antonelli’s F1 title chances higher or lower than 70%?

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Juan Pablo Montoya claims Kimi Antonelli beat George Russell due to his ‘better mentality’

Also speaking on the post-show, Juan Pablo Montoya explained why Antonelli’s mentality had improved far more from earlier in the weekend, and that allowed him to edge out in their heated battle.

“I thought it was amazing. I think the race between them was amazing. At the beginning, it looked like George had him covered; he had over a second. They didn’t show what happened, and all of a sudden, they’re racing each other, passing each other. It was probably out of the hairpin at turn 10 again.

“Both of them were struggling on the brakes there. It seemed like they didn’t have a good enough reference, or the conditions were changing, or the tyres were at the limit because they were missing the turn. Everybody was missing turn 10 a lot. For us, it just made it more interesting.

“I think apart from the mistake from Kimi on the braking there, he avoided it well, his mindset was better than yesterday. He had opportunities to go for it. He waited for the right occasion to pass, but the hard thing, that is amazing for us, with the overtake, is that they can get back. They’re going at each other.

“Toto, before the race was like, ‘Try not to lose too much time.’ And I think at some point, they had to go on the radio and say, ‘Guys, come on, we just gave up two seconds.’ The gap would open, and they would start fighting again.”

Both Antonelli and Russell wanted to see their battle through, but the latter’s DNF cleared the path for the championship leader to extend his lead atop the standings.

Despite the tense turn things took between both drivers, Antonelli doesn’t want to imitate Lewis Hamilton and how he handled his own Mercedes teammate battle with Nico Rosberg.

With Antonelli now over 40 points ahead of Russell, the young Italian is in control of his own destiny, and could steamroll his way to the world championship.