Championship leader Antonelli clips fence in car park at COTA, then fires off burnout

Kimi Antonelli’s weekend at the Circuit of the Americas took a light-hearted turn when the Mercedes championship leader was caught on camera reversing his road car into a wooden fence in the COTA paddock car park — before recovering his composure with a crowd-pleasing burnout.

The 20-year-old Italian arrived at the Austin circuit in a personalised Mercedes-AMG GT 4-Door Coupe, provided through the team’s partnership with MANUFAKTUR. As he reversed into a space alongside team-mate George Russell’s identical model, he misjudged the distance and nudged the wooden barrier behind him. The contact was minor, but Antonelli then leaned into the moment, performing a burnout that filled the area with tyre smoke to the delight of watching fans.

The small slip stands out because it came on a weekend when Antonelli has otherwise looked razor-sharp. He arrives at Sunday’s race carrying a 102-point lead over Russell in the drivers’ standings and holds a genuine, if narrow, chance of being crowned F1 world champion before the chequered flag falls in Texas. To seal the title at COTA, he would need to win the race while Russell finishes ninth or lower and Lewis Hamilton fifth or lower — a specific set of results that makes it unlikely but not impossible.

Should he eventually take the championship, Antonelli would become the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history — a remarkable achievement for a driver who only made his grand prix debut last season.

On the technical side, Mercedes has brought the full version of its upgraded package — first introduced in Malaysia and partially trialled in Singapore — to Austin. Antonelli ran the new front wing in Singapore while Russell stayed on the older specification for comparison data; both drivers now have the complete latest package.

“Since Singapore we were able to analyse the data and understand better what this package needs,” Antonelli said. “We’re still trying to find how to put the car in the right window, but we’ve been taking steps forward and we’ll see what we can do to improve even more.”