Antonelli stands on brink of history in Austin

Kimi Antonelli can become the youngest F1 world champion on Sunday, but far from feeling the pressure he says he is enjoying himself more than usual. Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Kimi Antonelli is aiming to become the first Italian F1 world champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953 By Andrew Benson F1 Correspondent in Austin Published 8 hours ago Kimi Antonelli stands on the brink of history at the United States Grand Prix, where he can become Formula 1's youngest world champion on Sunday, but far from feeling the pressure he says he is enjoying himself more than usual. It certainly looked like it on Saturday at the Circuit of the Americas as he took a surprise pole position by 0.179 seconds from Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

Antonelli will become world champion on Sunday if he wins the race while his Mercedes team-mate George Russell is lower than eighth and Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton below fourth. Hamilton and Russell start the race fifth and sixth. Antonelli had not been on pole since the Belgian Grand Prix in July after Mercedes' early season dominance came under challenge from first McLaren and then Red Bull.

And his delight was clear as he whooped over the team radio on his slowing down lap. Antonelli takes US pole on weekend he can win title Published 10 hours ago He came into the weekend insisting he was going to try to apply the "same mindset as I had all year – one race at a time". But on Saturday he acknowledged that this one was a new kind of weekend.

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

And, actually, I feel like I can enjoy more driving, everything. "But, of course, we're going to do the race tomorrow.

We're going to try and win. And then we'll see what happens.

Obviously, I'm in a very good position." Antonelli is typically accompanied by his father, Marco, at grands prix, but he said this weekend he had brought other people with him as well to help keep him in the right frame of mind. "I have a great group of people around me," he said.

"I have a lot of friends here as well, so we enjoy the evenings together. "We play cards in the evening, so we're just doing the fun stuff.

And that's what helps, to just relax a little bit and just connect with the mind, and then once you go on track you are back full focus." The maths suggest the most likely scenario is that Antonelli will not win the title on Sunday – it would, as he put it on Thursday, require "something catastrophic to happen to the others". If this is a bit of an overstatement – Russell and Hamilton would need only to crash together on the first lap, for example – the fundamental truth is real.

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Antonelli was embraced by his father, Marco, after securing his seventh pole of the campaign He has such a huge advantage – he is 102 points clear of Russell and 111 ahead of Hamilton – that the championship is an inevitability at some point, as Verstappen pointed out when he was asked if he had any advice for his young friend before the race. "He doesn't need that," the four-time world champion said.

"He knows what he's doing. He just needs to try and win the race.

If it doesn't happen here, it will happen next weekend (in Mexico City). If it doesn't happen next weekend, it will happen the weekend after (in Sao Paulo).

"It's just been an incredible season. So, you have to also just try and enjoy, of course, this kind of ride over the last months that you've been in.

And at one point it's official, and then you can celebrate." "Incredible" is an over-used word, but an entirely appropriate one in the circumstances.