1996 Formula 1 world champion Damon Hill has described Kimi Antonelli's season as "astonishing", viewing the teenager as an "incredible talent".
After a rocky maiden Formula 1 campaign, during which Antonelli collected just one point across the European races, the 19-year-old has flown out of the blocks in 2026.
Antonelli holds a 50-point lead over Lewis Hamilton after 11 races, having won six of them.
He also enjoys a 59-point advantage over team-mate George Russell, whom many viewed as the title favourite heading into the first season of the new power unit regulations.
Those odds have changed rapidly, with the young Italian simply going from strength to strength.
Hill has been hugely impressed by Antonelli and has warned Russell that he must raise his game to remain in the title fight.
"Kimi’s had a season in F1, and over the winter there’s a kind of gestation period where all the things you’ve learned in the year sink in, and you suddenly come out fighting," Hill told the official F1 website.
"It’s been astonishing. He clearly has got an incredible talent and maturity for a 19-year-old. I think with George… For me, when Jacques Villeneuve arrived at Williams, it was a little bit of that.
"He was 10 years younger than me, but he’d also just come off the back of a championship season in IndyCar, and he’d achieved a lot of success in another senior formula elsewhere.
"So, it’s slightly different, and the outcome of that was I beat Jacques, so George has got to do that somehow!"
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