Kimi Antonelli is Mercedes’ golden boy, and the team’s silence is the proof. That is the argument made by Jonathan McEvoy in his paddock column, where he claims the Silver Arrows organization is pulling for its teenage Italian driver over George Russell in this year’s title fight.
McEvoy wrote last week that Mercedes bigwigs were subtly favoring Antonelli over Russell, describing the 18-year-old as the driver who fills the emotional gap left by Lewis Hamilton’s departure to Ferrari. The telling detail, he argues, is what did not happen next: not a single word of protest came from Mercedes.
In the days when Hamilton was the team’s standard-bearer, McEvoy writes, that kind of commentary would have been met with a swift retort from a Mercedes spokesperson via WhatsApp or phone. The absence of any such response, he says, tells its own story.
A sliding door moment
McEvoy points to a specific race as the turning point in the championship picture. When Russell suffered technical problems in qualifying in China, Antonelli took pole and won the race. That result, McEvoy argues, was the sliding door moment that shaped where each driver stands in the standings today, with Antonelli holding a 50-point advantage over Hamilton and a larger one over Russell.
Antonelli’s rise has come with some surprise, McEvoy concedes. His speed was never in doubt, but he was error-prone last year after being exposed to Formula One scrutiny at age 18. He has since found his feet and is regularly delivering strong drives, picking up damage-limitation points on weekends when he is not at his sharpest.
Russell’s options
McEvoy says Russell faces a difficult reality. If he loses the title, Antonelli’s favored status would be set in stone, and Russell risks being cast permanently as a number two driver, a role he compares to David Coulthard alongside Mika Hakkinen.
His advice to Russell is twofold: fight for the championship despite the headwinds, and explore the possibility of moving teams for next season to make a fresh start.
Hamilton’s revival
Hamilton, meanwhile, has produced what McEvoy calls the most remarkable driver transformation of the year. After a troubled 2025 campaign in which Hamilton publicly suggested Ferrari should replace him, he has turned his form around and is described as Antonelli’s closest and most realistic challenger, sitting 50 points back.
The improvement, McEvoy writes, comes from Hamilton becoming more integrated into Ferrari, working on the same wavelength with new race engineer Carlo Santi, and driving a car that suits him better than last year’s edition. The column also raises, with some curiosity, whether Hamilton’s relationship with Kim Kardashian has helped revive his confidence.
Still, McEvoy does not hand Hamilton a clean bill of health. Niggling mistakes have cost him penalties four times in three races, and Ferrari’s strategy calls have not always been clean either.
Norris and the calendar
Lando Norris won in Hungary at the weekend and McEvoy says he should not be written off in the championship yet, despite sitting 91 points back with 11 of 22 or 23 rounds completed. His McLaren arrived in Budapest with a promising upgrade, and Norris benefited when Oscar Piastri was delayed by Carlos Sainz.
Norris said ahead of the summer break that he planned to spend time with friends and family, play golf and padel, and try to lose some weight.
On the calendar, McEvoy notes that Imola is pencilled in as a potential venue for the season finale should Qatar and Abu Dhabi be ruled out due to geopolitical disruption. The Bahrain Grand Prix, displaced from its original April slot, is confirmed to take place in Malaysia on October 4.
