Antonelli rules nothing out but still feels he owes Mercedes

Asked in the Mercedes hospitality in Madrid whether he saw himself in red one day, the championship leader gave an answer closer to a debt than an open door.

Every young Italian who leads a Formula 1 championship eventually gets the same question, and Kimi Antonelli has now been asked it directly. Sitting in the Mercedes hospitality unit at the Madring during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, he was asked by Automoto.it whether he saw himself in Ferrari red one day.

His answer, given to Diletta Colombo and published on 17 September, was reported widely as an opening. Read in full, it is closer to the opposite. "Right now I am fine where I am," he said. "I am delighted to be at Mercedes, not least because I feel I have a debt to repay them for all the opportunities they have given me. They were the ones who believed in me when I was only 12. They have guided me through this whole process of growing up and I hope to win a great deal with them in the future. Then we will see. I rule nothing out, but today the objective is to win as much as possible with Mercedes."

A debt before a door

The sentence that travelled is "I rule not...