Max Verstappen hands Kimi Antonelli key advice on being F1 champion

Max Verstappen has offered Kimi Antonelli a dose of reality about life as a newly crowned F1 champion, warning the Mercedes driver that the demands waiting for him off track are "not nice".

Antonelli became the youngest champion in F1 history on Sunday after finishing third behind two of the greats in Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton.

 The 20-year-old has already spoken about the sheer volume of off-track duties and attention that followed, a workload Verstappen knows intimately from his own four championship wins with Red Bull.

Speaking about the morning after his first title, the Dutchman recalled the whirlwind of commitments that followed almost immediately.

"I was probably still drunk the next day," joked Verstappen, in conversation with media, including RacingNews365. "It was quite okay, to be honest, just going in a flow and yeah, just go with it.

"I mean, it's always very special when you win your first one. There are, of course, commitments the next day. It's not nice.

"But at the same time, you always know you dreamt of winning the championship, and that was the most important thing.

"And if that's one day extra of media the next day, then you just deal with it.

"Of course, a lot more people probably know him now. He is probably an even bigger hero in Italy, but that's fine.

"He looks very normal and very humble, so I don't think a lot will change for him."

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Alonso - Times have changed

Fernando Alonso, a two-time champion, pointed out just how much the commercial and media machine around a title has grown since his own championships two decades ago.

"It's a nice problem to have for sure, but 20 years ago, I don't think that we had the content that we need today and you know the [communications] team behind,"

"So you win, you do the press conference at home, visit the factory, say thanks to everyone at the factory, and that was it back then."