How is Antonelli preparing for his first F1 title chance? With a card game, of course

F1 title leader Kimi Antonelli will prepare for his first chance to clinch the title in tomorrow’s United States Grand Prix by playing a round of cards.

Antonelli took an unexpected pole for Sunday’s race at the Circuit of the Americas, putting him in a position to satisfy one of the key criteria to win the title.

To convert his points lead into the championship, the 20-year-old Italian must win the race with George Russell finishing no higher than ninth and Lewis Hamilton no higher than fifth.

Hamilton qualified fifth, while Russell is set to start the race from sixth on the grid.

Though the odds are against the necessary other results falling his way, Antonelli admitted that he will start the race with different emotions given the potential outcome.

“It does feel a little bit different, but the goal stays the same,” he said. “I just need to keep doing my job.

“I have a great group of people around me. I have a lot of friends here as well. We enjoy the evenings together — we play cards in the evening, so we’re just doing the fun stuff.

“That all helps to just relax a little bit and disconnect a little bit the mind. Then once you go on track, you’re back to full focus.”

But Antonelli denied he was feeling any extra pressure to rise to the occasion, even joking about being one of the few drivers not to infringe track limits despite his season-long tendency to stray beyond the white line.

“It was surprising [to get pole], but also one of the biggest achievements from me today is that I didn’t do track limits!” he laughed.

“We’ve still got to do the race tomorrow, we’ve still got to try and win, and then of course we’ll see what happens. I just feel like I can enjoy a bit more because obviously I’m in a very good position.

“But still, the mindset is always the same.”

Antonelli’s pole came despite a rough run of recent form for Mercedes, which has been flummoxed by the upgrade it brought to Malaysia that saw it step backwards down the order. Red Bull Racing has surged at the same time, with Verstappen claiming the last two victories on the bounce.

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Verstappen was Antonelli’s closest challenger, with teammate Isack Hadjar in third. George Russell, on the other hand, toiled in the other Mercedes, the Briton struggling with the new car’s narrower set-up window.

Antonelli said the result was nonetheless a positive sign that the upgraded car had potential.

“I’m happy because we’ve been working really hard on this package and we’re still trying to understand it fully, but since Singapore we’ve taken a big step,” he said.

“Now we’ve just got to keep working, keep understanding, but it’s a good result for the team, because they’ve done a tremendous job on bringing this package, and finally we’re seeing the results.

“It’s good to finish the day like this, but of course tomorrow’s going to be a new day. Max has been very quick. Isack has also been very quick. I just need to get a good start, and then we’ll see from there what we can do.”