Double silver after the thrill in FP3
He will start from second position Kimi Antonelli in tomorrow’s Australian GP, except for penalties for the blower which got stuck in the belly of the car and was unexpectedly lost on the track. A result worth remembering for the Italian thinking about what happened in the final part of FP3, when he had destroyed his Mercedes in a bad accident. The super work of his mechanics, also helped by the red flag caused by Max Verstappen’s accident during Q1, prevented him from having to start from the pit lane in tomorrow’s Grand Prix. However, Antonelli put the rest there, despite one car far from perfect in terms of set-up.
“We couldn’t do the setup – explained Antonelli to the microphones of Sky Sports F1 at the end of Q3 – so we put the car down as it was and went out on the track. This morning I just made a small mistake – explained the Italian, returning to the accident of the last free practice session – but it had very big consequences. I was straight on the curb and when the curb ended the car jumped and then I lost it. It wasn’t a huge mistake, but unfortunately it had very big consequences. I have to say that the team, the mechanics, were the heroes of the day. Getting the car back in place and without having any major problems was truly incredible of them.”.
Abysmal advantage
“An incident like this certainly doesn’t help confidence – Antonelli admitted again with honesty – also because this morning I had incredible confidence in the car and I was going really fast. You definitely come into qualifying a little more tense. Without setup the car was a bit unpredictable in certain points and I also struggled a bit with the batterybut I must say that it was a luxury despite everything”. Now the hope is that one does not arrive retreat to the grid For unsafe release to partially nullify the work carried out by the Brackley team: “I hope the penalty is just a fine for the team“, said the #12 of the silver arrows.
Finally, at least in words, even the young talent from Bologna showed himself surprised by the margin shown by Mercedes over all the competition. An abysmal gap: “No, we didn’t expect it – he declared – the only thing we knew was that in qualifying, also because of our turbo, we had help. But I have to say that the race pace this morning was also really good. The car is going really well, so you have to take advantage of every single opportunity“.
