What happened to Lando is happening to Kimi right now
Last year we watched a driver get ripped apart by the media and fans for being his honest self, and then watched that same driver win the whole championship. And now, a year later, the same thing is happening all over again to a different driver and somehow nobody’s talking about it.
In Bahrain 2025, Lando qualified sixth. Finishing third, getting beaten by his teammate Oscar Piastri. In front of cameras afterwards he said he was “very disappointed” in himself, that maybe he lacked a bit of self belief, and that “this is just also me”. That, apparently was the crime.
Former racing driver Helmut Marko had already called him mentally weak back in 2024, which was so out of line that Zak Brown publicly said the comments were inappropriate. After Bahrain, 1980 champion Alan Jones went in too, “Mentally, I think he’s quite a weak person,” plus my personal favorite, “when they start talking all that nonsense, you know you’ve got them”. So a guy admitting he’s struggling gets told that admitting it is the proof he’s weak.
Norris then got booed on podiums in both Mexico and Brazil due to team orders. Talking about this, he said he cared too much about how people saw him and it was “affecting me in not the best ways”. Everyone lost it after that.
Then comes December 7th, 2025. Lando Norris becomes a Formula One world champion, proving haters wrong.
Nobody, however seems to be sorry. The facts just rolled over, and by late 2026, with Norris fifth in the standings and 132 points off the lead, a loud part of the internet talks about him like he wasn’t even that good in the first place. The narrative claiming he only won because he had the best car on the grid taking away his credit, as if every single champion before him didn’t have to maximize dominant machinery. And now, Kimi is being told the exact same thing.
Recently, Lando made a controversial post-race comment about Colapinto which should not have escalated to death threats.
And in the words of Lando Norris himself, back in October 2021 about his 2019 rookie year:
“Especially at my age coming into Formula 1 at 19 there’s a lot of eyes on you so dealing with all these kind of things took its toll on me”
That part specifically about the attention is identical to what we saw and still see with Kimi Antonelli.
Kimi is living part two of this movie right now. We saw it at the end of 2025 in Qatar, when a simple rookie mistake was twisted by Red Bull’s pit wall into a conspiracy theory that he “let Lando by.” The internet responded by flooding a teenager’s inbox with over 1,100 abusive comments, several of which were death threats
Back in September 2025, Jacques Villeneuve said the stuff Kimi was doing was “Formula 4” stuff, said Mercedes was paying the price for all the hype around him, and said he wasn’t making progress.
Kimi is now 20 with eight race wins and leading the championship by 84 points over his teammate.
Yet, after a bad weekend in Baku 2026, Naomi Schiff said Kimi had “spooked himself” under the title pressure and needed to get out of his head.
The counter argument I keep hearing is that the critics were just early. And fine, Norris did struggle through the middle of 2025. And it’s not like Kimi didn’t make mistakes. Every driver does. The criticism didn’t come from nowhere. But unfortunately, winning a title doesn’t end the criticism. If it was actually about mental strength, Abu Dhabi settles it forever. It didn’t settle anything.
Sebastian Vettel put this into words years ago:
“The real question I guess is what do people want? Because on the one hand they want emotions and on the other hand if they get emotions they don’t want emotions”
If Kimi Antonelli wins this championship in this year, it will be back to back, undeniable proof that the paddock’s definition of “mental strength” is broken. We would have a serious problem on our hands.
Norris in 2025, Antonelli in 2026.
Both wear their emotions on their sleeve, both are their own worst critics, and both are told their minds are their greatest liability.
In my humble opinion this whole thing is solely an empathy issue. A driver that isn’t aggressive off track doesn’t mean they aren’t on track. It is entirely possible and normal to have self doubt and still carry a world championship trophy in your hands. And most importantly, be deserving of it.
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