He got here into the weekend insisting he was going to attempt to apply the “similar mindset as I had all 12 months – one race at a time”.
However on Saturday he acknowledged that this one was a brand new form of weekend.
“It does really feel just a little bit completely different,” he mentioned. “However the aim stays the identical. I simply must maintain doing my job. And, truly, I really feel like I can get pleasure from extra driving, every part.
“However, after all, we’ll do the race tomorrow. We will attempt to win. After which we’ll see what occurs. Clearly, I am in an excellent place.”
Antonelli is often accompanied by his father, Marco, at grands prix, however he mentioned this weekend he had introduced different folks with him as nicely to assist maintain him in the fitting way of thinking.
“I’ve an important group of individuals round me,” he mentioned. “I’ve plenty of buddies right here as nicely, so we benefit from the evenings collectively.
“We play playing cards within the night, so we’re simply doing the enjoyable stuff. And that is what helps, to only loosen up just a little bit and simply join with the thoughts, after which when you go on monitor you might be again full focus.”
The maths counsel the almost certainly state of affairs is that Antonelli won’t win the title on Sunday – it might, as he put it on Thursday, require “one thing catastrophic to occur to the others”.
If this can be a little bit of an overstatement – Russell and Hamilton would wish solely to crash collectively on the primary lap, for instance – the basic reality is actual.
