Chinese Saturday started immediately uphill for Andrea Kimi Antonellifrom the first stages of the match Sprint until the checkered flag of the latter, lasting 19 laps. The Mercedes driver, who started from the second spot on the starting grid, was in fact the protagonist of a error at the startwith the Bolognese car remaining almost completely stationary. An episode that thus allowed his pursuers to easily overtake him, with #12 consequently forced to start a furious comeback.
Precisely in an attempt to climb back to the top of the rankings as quickly as possible already during the first lap, Antonelli also came into contact with Hadjar’s Red Bull after overtaking inside turn 6. A maneuver sanctioned by the Race Direction, which inflicted 10 second penalty. Having returned to the pits to serve it under the Safety Car regime after the withdrawal of Nico Hülkenberg’s Audi, the Sprint still ended at 5th place.
Interviewed by Sky Sports at the end of the race, Antonelli explained what went wrong at the start, finally acknowledging that he had made a mistake in the maneuver on Hadjar: “The turbo was missingit wasn’t ready at the start and first of all I had to let go of the clutch less – he commented – I had to let it crawl a lot more because otherwise I risked stalling, but I have to see what happened especially with the procedure, because it seems like something went wrong. I compromised my race, and with Isack it was my fault. The pace was decent, but with 10 seconds it was a mess.”
