Andrea Kimi Antonelli owned up to a couple of costly mistakes following the Singapore Grand Prix, where he still achieved a second consecutive top-five finish in Formula 1.
Although this was his first time driving on the Marina Bay Street Circuit, Antonelli was on the pace straight away, taking fifth and third in Q1 and Q2, both times with a one-tenth deficit on Mercedes team-mate George Russell.
But while Russell went on to grab pole position, Antonelli ended up fourth in Q3, 0.379s off the pace.
“For sure, the pace has been strong, qualifying has been better and better,” Antonelli commented after the race, having qualified ahead or fewer than two tenths behind Russell in the previous three rounds.
“I was a bit disappointed with yesterday because I felt I just overdrove. If I had controlled myself a little bit more, trying to do clean laps, it would have been a different story. I would have started further forward and it probably would have been a different race today.”
From the dirty side of the second row, Antonelli let Norris box him into a tight inside line ahead of the first corner, with Charles Leclerc sweeping around the outside. The rookie was going to spend most of the race looking at the Ferrari’s rear wing.
Oscar Piastri, McLaren, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, George Russell, Mercedes
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images
“My mistake in Turn 1 was to try and hold on to Norris,” Antonelli admitted. “Then I found myself way too on the inside and Leclerc had a much better run on the outside. So, it was a shame, but the pace in the race was really strong. That’s a positive and we’ll try to carry that into the next few races.”
Antonelli eventually fought his way past Leclerc, diving down the inside at Turn 16 on lap 53.
“With tyres, he started to struggle,” the Italian related. “He was really pushing and so I was trying to play the long game, trying to save my tyres and really trying to find the right moment to attack.
“When we were approaching the traffic of the backmarkers, I felt that was the best moment because he was in clean air and I was in dirty air and I was still able to hold on to him.
“I knew that he would start to struggle once he would get in dirty air as well. So, that was a good timing.” Good timing, but much too late to hope for anything better, as he ended up 33.7s down on his race-winning team-mate and 25.5s away from fourth-placed Oscar Piastri.
Antonelli has now collected 22 points over the last two grands prix – more than in the 10 previous rounds combined (18) – with his move on Leclerc earning him praise from Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images
“Kimi is also one that always sees the glass half-empty,” Wolff said. “And what he will see is a Q3 that didn’t go to plan, that could have put him in the first row, and a start in Turn 1 that wasn’t so good. That’s at least his honest feedback after the race. For him, it’s more like a front position that was lost rather than a P5 that was won.
“But solid delivery, the manoeuvre on Leclerc was strong. It wasn’t caught by the cameras, but we could see on the telemetry a huge braking event, that there was so much pressure in the system that it started to oscillate. That was good, and maybe that’s a bit comforting after the other parts of the race.”
Additional reporting by Cihangir Perperik and Sam Shephard
We want to hear from you!
Let us know what you would like to see from us in the future.
Take our survey
– The Autosport.com Team
Read the full article here