'It's not over until it's over' - Antonelli not taking title success for granted heading into US GP

How's Austin treating you? Whether I win the championship or whether I win it this weekend or next weekend or in Brazil, let's see. But still, it's not over until it's over and that's why the mindset is going to always be the same. He's done a very impressive job and if it's not this weekend, it's likely to be the weekend next weekend or in Brazil. So, a very good job to him. He has driven some really strong races. He has been really, really intelligent as well. You know, at the times when he needed to be intelligent. And the level of maturity that he has shown is pretty impressive. So he really deserves a title. You know, I've done an incredible job this year, just delivers, just quick, very few mistakes, you know, brings it home all the time and obviously he's had a very strong showing. It's been a season that has very much tested my character and resilience and I guess I've learned a lot about myself being in these moments because I've never really found myself there in my career before so I guess I can say they're the lessons that I'll take forward and it'll help me over the next 10-15 years of my career. I'm now forced to have to stay a lot longer because we have a race in Africa and that's been my dream to be able to race in Africa. So you've got to come. So, yeah, I have to keep fighting to try and stay fit if I can. If I can still punch out good results over the next year, we'll keep it going. We know that we're lacking a bit of performance compared to the teams around us in general, regardless of our strengths and weaknesses. But yeah, hopefully at least we can exploit some strengths this weekend. Yeah, it's good news for the team, of course. It's sad to lose Esteban, but I think that it's a nice beginning for us, for myself, potentially. Stepping into a new role within the team and then having Rafa, I think he's a good asset and I'm excited to race alongside him. I don't want to look elsewhere. you know I'm only 30 at this minute and maybe in the future I will I will do something else for sure because I love racing I love cars I'm passionate about this but you know Formula One is the the pinnacle of motorsport and and this is where I want to be for the next you know five seven years. I know Rafa since we are kids eight nine years old and you know he's super talented we have been racing together since young ages as I mentioned he won F3 he's in the fight so tight for in F2 so you know he more than deserves a seat in Formula One every area of the team we need to get better for next year and that's that's part of the challenge and we embrace that challenge and we go for it first thing even if it's not an old school track it feels like one and I think that's why many drivers we we like it and we enjoy it and on top of that it produces some great racing so yeah not expecting a podium this year but uh definitely gonna try and still enjoy what is a great track.