Antonelli earns Michael Schumacher comparison after latest title twist
Antonelli has earned the highest comparison (Photo: Race Pictures)
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David Coulthard has compared Kimi Antonelli's title run to Michael Schumacher's era of dominance after George Russell's late retirement at Sepang.
The former McLaren and Red Bull driver agreed that champions seem to get the luck, but argued that the greats earn it by winning again and again.
Coulthard was speaking on Channel 4 after the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Antonelli finished second, and Russell's engine failure late in the race lifted his lead to 84 points with seven races left at most.
GPblog has already covered Russell's own reaction. The view from the commentary box adds a different question: was Antonelli lucky, or is something else going on?
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Coulthard goes back to Sepang 2001
Channel 4 host Lee McKenzie put it to Coulthard that 'the champions get all the luck'. He did not disagree.
It does feel like that, doesn't it? It does feel that, when you've got a roll of performance… it would be easy for me to reflect back on the Schumacher era. Here, racing, he goes off and still wins the Grand Prix because of a set of circumstances. But the greats are serial winners.- David Coulthard
He was referring to the 2001 Malaysian Grand Prix. Schumacher won that race even though he slid off the track in an early downpour, and he passed Coulthard on his way back to the front. Coulthard finished second to Schumacher in that year's championship, but with barely half his points.
Coulthard has made a similar point before. In September, after Antonelli's win in Madrid, he told the Up To Speed podcast that he did not buy the luck argument. "Yeah, call him lucky. I call him a phenomenon," he said at the time.
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Brundle offers a different explanation
Over the same weekend, Martin Brundle looked at the title fight from another angle; the Sky Sports pundit questioned whether Mercedes are as neutral as Toto Wolff says.
The two pundits are not actually arguing with each other. Brundle offered no evidence of favouritism and did not accuse Mercedes of acting on any preference. Coulthard, for his part, puts Antonelli's results down to a winning habit rather than fortune or team politics. That leaves two explanations for the same 84-point gap, and neither one is about how Russell's car failed.
Third place every time would be enough
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Antonelli now only needs to finish third in every remaining race to become champion. He would also still lead the standings even if he failed to score in any of the next four races, including the Singapore Sprint.
If the Schumacher comparison holds, Antonelli will not need much luck from here. Finishing in the top three every time would be enough.
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