u/Kingslayer1526

Let me preface by saying that I am a massive fan of Antonelli, I am really rooting for him and believe he can achieve great things. However, that being said,

The first championship is always a challenge for a driver. Norris 2025, Verstappen 2021, Rosberg 16, Vettel 10, Button 09(built up a big lead but the car was nowhere in the 2nd half of the season), Alonso 05, Hakkinen 98, Villeneuve 97

This is the easiest first championship since Hill 96. However, that was not Hill's first season in a top car. He already had 93-95, 1994 where he lost the title by 1 point to Schumacher in Adelaide after that infamous crash, 1993 where his teammate won the championship and 1995 where he had a disastrous failure despite having a car as fast as the Benetton. So 1996 almost felt like a moment we had waited for and something that poor Damon deserved for his troubles, while JV was an exciting up and coming challenger who showed potential.

Then you have Schumacher 1994, mentioned above, then there is Mansell 1992 who is a copy of Hill, fought for the title before and failed repeatedly before his moment arrived at last. Senna 1988, beat Prost who actually had more points and was already a 2 time champion. Prost 85, won quite comfortably yes, but this came after a year where he lost the championship by 0.5 points to his teammate. Now we can keep going a bit further but I will stop here, saying that 82 for Keke and 81 for Piquet were also dramatic

Antonelli has had no narratives, no struggles, no nothing. Neither was his championship battle difficult, nor did it feel it was a long time coming after some failed championship battles(as it was in the case of Hill in 96 and Mansell in 92, who both won the championship comfortably in a rocket ship)

Even Antonelli's first season was farily run of the mill. He was beaten by his teammate comfortably, he himself got 3 podiums, but the car was only the 3rd fastest and was only able to get a few wins and never were in contention for anything while there was an epic championship battle up ahead

So I mean it is all just very strange. It has come very quickly for Kimi true, but it has also just sort of happened without anything exciting happening. Only one of his wins have even been memorable, that being Monza, but to call it hard fought would be a lie because he was up to p1 within 16 laps having started at the back.

Now you can create stories such as youngest ever championship winner, but that is simply a statistic. It is not a feeling. The feeling comes when it is either hard fought and earned in that particular season, or over a driver's career. When neither are present, there is no feeling. This is the 2nd season of Antonelli's career, just nothing has happened so far for him in 2 seasons, so people feel it all is a bit strange. This may happen and has happened for plenty of drivers in their later championships, but not in their first.

For example, Verstappen 2022, Hamilton 17,19,15, Vettel 2011, Schumacher 01,02 are all very boring run of the mill seasons, However we already knew they were great, they were already champions and now they were just adding to the championships already won

Antonelli will be a deserving champion, but the above is why no one feels much excitement about it.

Downloaded so many Federer, Djokovic, Nadal outfits but can't find them when I go to play with them in play now

What's the issue here?

Now I might just be getting old, but do fans over here really not remember Milan in the 2000s not giving a fuck about their league and always resting their players to play in the UCL? Berlusconi only gave a damn about the UCL and so did the team

It's why they won a whopping 1 league title in 8 years under Ancelotti but always used to go deep in the UCL

Milan never took the league seriously and would give up quite early. The UCL was their bread and butter and they thrived in it.

No one made an issue of it then or used that a reason for them winning the UCL

Real Madrid did this in 1998 and 2000 as well, finishing 4th and 5th in the league respectively. They couldn't care less about the league and put all the eggs in the UCL basket and it paid off

PSG are not doing something new, it just so happens that their league is weak enough that they can win with rotated squads as well

Also important to note that most PSG players this year have been severely injury prone due to the exhausting nature of last season. All the PSG players played way more in the league last year compared to this year

Bizarre narrative being pushed by the media, it's nothing we haven't seen before