When he coined the famous phrase: “If you’re good enough, you’re old enough,” Sir Matt Busby definitely wasn’t thinking about Formula 1 drivers. But Kimi Antonelli has already proven that the Manchester United legend’s timeless words remain relevant today, and not just to football.

Even before the new season began, few would have even slightly questioned George Russell‘s place as the obvious title favourite. His Mercedes team-mate, largely forgotten in those pre-season predictions, has now placed a small seed of doubt. Because Antonelli’s first F1 victory wasn’t only significant because it made him only the second teenager in history to stand on the top step of a podium.

It also served as evidence, which we didn’t see in a chaotic rookie season last year, suggesting the 19-year-old can indeed better his much more experienced team-mate in a fair fight.

Sure, Antonelli was helped to become F1’s youngest ever Grand Prix pole-sitter by an electrical issue which restricted Russell to just one flying lap at the end of qualifying on Saturday. We’ll never know if the Brit could have found the extra quarter of a second to snatch pole if he had time for a second run.

But what we do know after last Sunday is that Antonelli can out-pace Russell over a Grand Prix distance. And if he can keep doing that then the procession that many though Russell might lead this year, given Mercedes’ early-season dominance, may never materialise.

Naturally, Mercedes are keen to cool talk of a title tilt from the teenager. “You can kind of see the hype that is going to start now, especially in Italy,” team boss Toto Wolff said.

“But mistakes are going to come and he’s just a kid. So it’s too early to even think about a championship. Both have equal opportunity, but it’s so long to talk about winning championships.

“As a young person, he just needs the maturity to grow. He has a fantastic driver as a team-mate, who has had eight years longer in the sport.

“You have to keep your feet on the ground. He will make mistakes and will have great days like today and all of that is going to add to hopefully being a world champion one day. But we shouldn’t get carried away.”

Even Antonelli’s father Marco, a former GT racer, knows the odds are stacked against his young son. He said: “I don’t know, honestly, because Kimi is young and I think he’s not perfect. He’s a good driver, of course, but experience is very important and I think George is a very super driver with a lot of experience. It’s difficult to beat him.”

But then Antonelli is clearly not just any decent young talent. One of the slightly less cautious voices coming out of Mercedes has been that of his race engineer, Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, who previously worked closely with Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.

Antonelli, he believes, has the same trait as both of them which helped to set them apart from their rivals. Bono said: “I read the book about the 10,000-hour rule many years ago and I started to really strongly believe that if we all had enough practice, we’d be good enough.

“Then I met the likes of Michael and Lewis, and then you realise that, no, there is the extra step. And that’s what Kimi has got. He’s got that extra tenth or two.”

The advice he will be giving to his driver over the radio in the coming weeks and months is clear. Bono added: “To win one race, that’s great. To win a championship… That’s going to take endurance. If you tick all the boxes and get all your ducks in a row, it will come to you, so just focus on the task in hand and don’t worry about a championship. It will come.”

A couple more performances like the one Antonelli produced in China, and few will disagree.