The 17-year-old from Bologna dominates in Zandvoort on a wet weekend and is now unattainable in the standings: a victory with style that confirms the skills of Toto Wolff’s very young protégé, already in the Mercedes orbit
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Salvuss
Formula Regional has its new champion. Without any particular surprises because on the Zandvoort weekend, where the penultimate round of the 2023 season took place, it was Andrea who took the lead Kimi Antonelli, already a long time favorite for the final victory. Born in 2006, recently turned 17, the young man from Bologna who races for the Prema Racing team from Vicenza dominated the weekend on the Dutch track, mathematically closing the accounts with an appointment (and two heats) to spare. After second place in race 1 on Saturday, Antonelli showed off his entire repertoire as a baby phenomenon in the Sunday heat, held entirely in wet track conditions.
PHENOMENON IN THE WET
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Starting from the eighth spot, already at the beginning of the third lap he took first position with a textbook overtaking on the leader Marcus Amand, surprised by passing on the internal trajectory (theoretically less favorable) of the first sector bank. From then on, thanks to a pace unattainable for anyone, Kimi “limited himself” to managing the pressure of his rivals, authoritatively also administering the restart after the red flag, exposed following the bad accident (fortunately without physical consequences for the drivers involved) by Emerson Fittipaldi Jr, Maya Weug and Nikhil Bohra.
UNREACHABLE
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With the 43 points collected in Holland, the young star of the Mercedes academy – Antonelli was signed by Toto Wolff at the age 12 years oldwhen he was still racing karts – flies to 282 in the rankings and is therefore mathematically unattainable for the Norwegian rival Martinius Stenshorne, second with 218 points. The European Formula Regional will return to the track next weekend, with the last two races of the year scheduled on the German track of Hockenheim, where Kimi will be able to race without pressure while waiting for the announcement of the jump – it has been talked about for weeks and it seems to be missing only the official – in Formula 2 in 2024.
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