Kimi Antonelli knows how to beat George Russell after rewatching Lewis Hamilton Mercedes footage

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Andrea Kimi Antonelli says he’s been rewatching some iconic teammate battles in Formula 1 as he fights George Russell for the title.

With Antonelli already 56 points clear of third-place Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, it looks set to be a two-horse race for the F1 title. Russell is 43 points back, but he was on course to cut the lead to 18 before he retired from the lead of the Canadian GP.

Russell was also unfortunate in China, where his Q3 was disrupted by a stoppage, and Japan, where a safety car worked against him. On that basis, he should close the gap, rather than allowing his teammate to run away with it.

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Kimi Antonelli wants to ‘outsmart the competitor’ like Lewis Hamilton

During a Q&A in Italy, Antonelli was asked whether he has been studying some famous intra-team rivalries, like Lewis Hamilton vs Nico Rosberg, Ayrton Senna vs Alain Prost and even Lando Norris vs Oscar Piastri.

“For sure, I’ve been watching some of the battles,” he said, via Il Piccolo Faenza. “Some of them were maybe a bit on the limit.”

Antonelli has learned that being consistent and racing ‘smart’ are the keys to winning the championship in these circumstances. When Hamilton beat Rosberg in 2014 and 2015, for example, he finished on the podium in 33 out of 38 races, very rarely dropping significant points.

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He said: “The main takeaway is to be as consistent as possible over the course of the championship, trying to maximise the performance, the results every time you go on track, take as many points [as possible], race aggressively but also smart, trying to outsmart the competitor.”

Still, Antonelli is determined to avoid a Hamilton/Rosberg repeat at Mercedes this year. Both drivers know what’s at stake but are committed to preserving team harmony.

“You race your teammate a bit differently, because you don’t want to make a mess within the team,” he said. “At the end of the day, me and George, we’re in a great position to achieve something really big, something we’ve dreamed of for a long time.

“At the same time, we don’t want to ruin the environment inside the team, because now there’s a very good dynamic. We know that we race for ourselves because we want to be the best, but at the same time we want the best for the team.”

Mercedes convened a meeting between their two drivers after the Canadian GP Sprint last weekend, with Antonelli seething after he felt Russell pushed him off the track en route to victory. They were reminded about how they should race one another.

That didn’t reduce the intensity of their battle in the main Grand Prix, though. There were multiple near-misses as they exchanged the lead multiple times, with both drivers warned that the team would intervene unless they ‘tidied’ things up.