Kimi Antonelli offers Lando Norris claim after over controversial Qatar incident

Kimi Antonelli is adamant that he could have held Lando Norris at bay and secure fourth in the Qatar GP if it were not for his mistake on the penultimate lap.

Rounding Turns 9 and 10 on Lap 56 of 57 in Qatar, Antonelli ran wide in the Mercedes whilst running in fourth place, allowing title-chasing Norris to rescue two precious points and take 12 for fourth instead of 10 for fifth.

This meant that Norris heads to the Abu Dhabi showdown with a 12-point lead over Max Verstappen, and not a 10-point one, with senior Red Bull figures immediately claiming Antonelli had purposely let Norris past. 

Verstappen's race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, claimed, without seeing the incident, that Antonelli had "pulled over" to let Norris through, whilst Helmut Marko indicated it was on purpose, with Antonelli and Mercedes seeing a 1100% increase in abuse across its social media platforms, including death threats.

Mercedes is taking action with the FIA as Red Bull issued a statement "regretting" the abuse suffered by the rookie, who was sure he could have kept Norris behind until the flag.

Asked by RacingNews365 if he felt he had the pace to hold Norris off, Antonelli replied that he was certain he could have.

"Yeah, definitely," said the Italian.

"I was comfortable because he came with so much more pace, but then in the dirty air, he couldn't get past, so I was pretty comfortable.

"He was even out of DRS for a couple of laps, so yeah, I felt like I could have held him off, but I just made a mistake."

When asked for his reflections on fighting two title contenders in recent races after his battle with Verstappen in Brazil for second place, Antonelli signalled he was keen to continue improving.

"Overall, the second half of the season has been much stronger, and we've been fighting at the front more often, which is exciting," he said.

"We've shown the pace, and I think in Vegas, we were super quick and in Brazil we were able to hold on, so we can be happy, but there is a lot of room to improve and work on, and I just need to keep the momentum, just finish the year on a high and then 2026 will start."