Ex-Formula 1 driver Christian Danner believes Kimi Antonelli should still feel threatened by Lando Norris in the battle for the World Championship title.The teenage prodigy has dominated the first half of the season, winning six out of the opening eleven races and building a commanding 50-point championship lead over Lewis Hamilton.Antonelli is in pole position for the 2026 F1 world titleGettyOn paper a comeback looks unlikely: Norris currently sits fifth in the standings, trailing the Italian driver by 91 points with only 11 rounds remaining.However, the McLaren star issued a major statement of intent heading into the summer break by storming to a brilliant victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix last weekend.Converting pole position into his first main-race victory of the campaign, Norris demonstrated that he is not ready to surrender his crown without a fight.The Woking-based outfit brought a major upgrade package to Hungary, which provided their drivers with genuine race-winning pace.Following his victory, Norris said: “The pressure is on him [Antonelli] for sure. There’s no pressure on me. I’ve been feeling very confident.“They [Mercedes] have made more mistakes as a team and we have made less and we have come strong but I expect them to still win races and expect us to win more races.“We just need to be perfect from here on now for the whole year. We need to improve the car still. We were certainly the quickest in Hungary from qualifying to the race.“Not every race is going to be this simple, and we are going to be as quick, so we need to work hard to try to get the car to be this good to get the car to be this good everywhere. If we can, maybe that’s a genuine question.”Speaking exclusively to talkSPORT via OLBG, Danner praised the transformation in Norris’ mindset since lifting his maiden drivers’ title last year.He said: “Lando has changed, and he’s now an adult. He’s no kid anymore, and the fact that he won the championship did him a lot of good.Norris won by an impressive margin of 15 seconds over Max Verstappen in HungaryGetty“He’s a much stronger personality that is not getting confused on the way to the next win, and he’s full of self-confidence.“I mean, you just have to listen to him when he was said, ‘I would have won that anyway, no matter what happens to Oscar’. It just shows you he’s a mature driver now.”Emotional criticismNorris faced intense scrutiny during his championship battle last season, with critics often labelling him ‘too emotional’ during high-pressure moments.Various pundits argued that the 26-year-old was overly self-critical after making errors, publicly labelling his own driving or qualifying performances poorly.However, Danner insisted those doubts are firmly in the past. He said: “He’s a very mature driver now and doesn’t lack any speed. He’s clearly someone who can attack the established Mercedes team.“Whether McLaren are going to get on top of the situation, I don’t know. They have made very clear improvements, and the car is better now. Whether that is going to continue, I don’t know, but we’ll find out.Norris became the 11th British driver to be crowned F1 championGetty“I mean, Lando as a personality, as a driver is clearly in a position to defend his championship title. Whether the car is going to be fast enough and the packaging around the car.”The Verstappen blueprintIf Norris is to pull off a remarkable comeback and deny Antonelli the crown, he will need a relentless second half of the campaign.However, a comeback of this magnitude is not without precedent. Last season, Max Verstappen was 104 points off the championship lead with 10 races to go.Ultimately, he fell short of the title by just two points – a crown which was eventually claimed by Norris.Reflecting on Antonelli’s mindset, Danner added: “It’s fairly obvious who the favourite for winning the championship is. I mean, the way Kimi drove with such ease was outstanding. “It was just incredible. And therefore he’s the most likely candidate for winning the championship.“However, it’s not going to be boring because the interesting thing to watch is simply whether he can keep this kind of easygoing approach.” I mean, he might eventually end up in some sort of trouble occasionally, which will make things a lot less easy. At the moment, it just looks almost too easy for him, doesn’t it?”