Max Verstappen is expected to take victory from second on the grid at the United States Grand Prix, with a majority of F1 fans who voted in a recent RacingNews365 poll backing the Red Bull driver.
In doing so, Verstappen would keep his slim chances of winning the F1 drivers' championship alive and give George Russell and Lewis Hamilton a reprieve.
To claim his first title, Kimi Antonelli — who holds a 102-point advantage over his Mercedes team-mate and starts from pole at the Circuit of the Americas — must triumph in Austin.
That alone would be enough to rule Verstappen out of contention, with the young Italian needing Russell to finish ninth or lower and Hamilton to come home fifth or worse.
However, the Red Bull driver holds some significant advantages over Antonelli across the 56-lap race in Texas. Aside from the fact Isack Hadjar can play rear gunner in the sister RB22, Verstappen has two fresh sets of soft tyres to draw upon, which offers him a considerable amount of strategic flexibility.
With Hadjar also in the same boat, Red Bull may be able to tactically force Mercedes' hand and make life difficult for Antonelli, even if the 20-year-old does retain the lead at the start.
A third of all respondents still backed the eight-time grand prix winner to take victory and, at the least, strengthen his grip on becoming the youngest F1 drivers' champion.
Surely an inevitability at this stage, Antonelli will beat Sebastian Vettel's mark from 2010 by over three years.
Check out the full results below from the latest poll by RacingNews365!
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