Montoya freezes Antonelli: “He won’t win the World Cup. He will collapse under pressure”

Italian pride After the first three GPs of 2026, Italy, which loves motorsport, finds itself living a daydream. ‘Our’ Andrea Kimi Antonelli is in fact leader of the world championship ranking after having achieved success in the Chinese and Japanese Grands Prix and seems ready to compete for the title with his teammate George Russell, certainly more shrewd and experienced than him but who for the moment in the standings is looking from behind the 19-year-old from Bologna. The question that intrigues all fans in the Circus, Italians and beyond, is whether a young and inexperienced driver like Antonelli will be able to withstand a head-to-head with his garage partner at a distance, keeping the contention for the championship open until the end of the season. In this regard, while applauding the results achieved so far by the #12 of Mercedes, the former Colombian driver Juan Pablo Montoya expressed more than one doubt. Montoya skeptical The 50-year-old from Bogota – who in 2003 came quite close to winning the World Championship, but was then beaten by Michael Schumacher in a spectacular three-way sprint that also included Kimi Raikkonen – speaking to the Casinostugan website, he shot down Antonelli’s ambitions: “I don’t think Antonelli will become world champion. When he starts to realize that he is at the top of the standings I think the pressure could get the better of him, because he is very young and not has never experienced a situation like this before.” “It’s much easier to be the hunter than to be the prey – added the former Williams and McLaren driver – so, if you are the prey and you start to get beaten again, you could go haywire and start to collapse, making various mistakes”.