Antonelli 'walks over water' for win that will go down in F1 folklore

Kimi Antonelli's stunning victory in the Italian Grand Prix from 19th on the grid will go down in Formula 1 folklore - and, remarkably, his team boss Toto Wolff said that he had seen it coming on Saturday.

After Sunday's race, Wolff said that beforehand he thought that one of his two drivers was going to be standing on the top of the podium.

It was an eye-opening statement given they started the race 17 places apart on the grid, George Russell on the front row alongside shock pole winner Pierre Gasly's Alpine; Antonelli on the penultimate row.

"I thought one of the two is going to win," Wolff said. "Either George, because he was on the front row, or Kimi because he's going to walk over water, here at Monza. And I felt that yesterday also."

Wolff was asked to explain why he felt a performance he was comparing to a miracle was on the cards.

"It's been a while that I've seen drivers," he said. "Energy levels, mindset or behavioural pattern. I knew that was his mission today, to win the race. I chatted with his father yesterday. The father also saw that coming.

"These are the moments where you can see how a weekend is panning out through the sessions that a special moment can come."

Antonelli takes stunning Monza win from 19th on grid

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For the Mercedes drivers, this race was all about the context of the weekend.

Antonelli knew coming in that he would be starting at the back because of a grid penalty for using too many engines this year.

Russell knew that he had to make the most of this opportunity and cut as much as he could out of his team-mate's 59-point championship lead.

Fifth or sixth was the general consensus for what might be realistically possible for Antonelli, who himself said after the race that he had "thought a podium was possible".

What changed everything was his remarkable progress in the early laps of the race, which brought to mind another Biblical miracle, the parting of the Red Sea.

Antonelli was 14th after a relatively conservative first lap, then 12th at the end of lap two, when Charles Leclerc crashed his Ferrari to bring the race to a temporary halt.

"With the red flag, I was already P12," Antonelli said. "And then I knew that I could have a shot at it."

A lap after the restart, he was up to eighth, and on the back of the leading group of cars running nose to tail. Seventh a lap later, after dispatching Lando Norris' McLaren.

By now, Russell was in the lead, having wasted little time dispensing with Gasly. But the Briton sensed trouble.

"A great race from the neutral perspective," Russell said. "As soon as I saw Kimi up to P5 after a handful of laps, I knew he was going to be in the fight with us. That was clearly a very impressive opening few laps."

Wolff said: "The differentiator today was the ability to go through the traffic. We've seen it with other great ones in the past. Lewis (Hamilton), who did it in some of the races. That's what he's shown today. When a driver and a car are one, then there's nothing that can stop them."

Antonelli in no mood to obey a computer algorithm

Briefly, for a few laps, Russell and Max Verstappen threatened to break away in the lead while Antonelli was finding a way past Gasly, the two McLarens and Hamilton's Ferrari.

But Russell and Verstappen were fighting at the front, costing each other time, and Antonelli was up to third by lap 13, just 1.8secs off Verstappen in the lead, with Russell between them.

Three laps later, the Mercedes drivers were running one-two, and starting to swap places themselves, until, with Russell leading, it was suggested by that team that they give it a rest and try to break away from Verstappen.

If Russell could not do so, they said, they would "invert the cars" - put Antonelli into the lead to try himself. But slowly they began to inch clear.

At this point, coming up to half-distance, the race victory was still up in the air. There was a virtual safety car (VSC), called when Lance Stroll's Aston Martin broke down at the first corner.

Mercedes called Antonelli for new tyres - a decision they had to make as he had switched to the medium compound at the red flag and that would not make it to the end. Russell continued on his hard tyres.

"It was the right thing to split the strategies," Wolff said, "because we didn't know what the better one would be. In the morning meeting, we said the hard tyre is going to go forever. You can start on it and finish on it. And you can see with George, it was a forever tyre.