Mercedes
Kimi Antonelli certainly seemed in the mix on Saturday in COTA, but not many expected the Italian to grab pole by nearly two tenths of a second – including his own boss, Toto Wolff admitting afterwards that he thought P3 to P5 was likely. But Antonelli had other ideas, going out early and nailing his first lap in Q3. No one really improved on the second runs thanks to tricky wind conditions, meaning the youngster had grabbed his first pole since Spa and put himself in a great position to challenge for the win.
George Russell could not get close to his team mate, two scrappy runs in Q3 meaning he lines up only sixth. Both Mercedes cars made it through Q1 on the mediums though, so they do have a new set of softs to play with tomorrow.
Kimi Antonelli, 1st, 1:34.035
“I am really happy to take pole position as that was not an easy session. We progressed throughout qualifying, as we have done all weekend, but the ultimate lap time was not easy to come by. We have focused on building up to the limit, getting the car in a good place and then trusting that we can extract the performance when it matters. We have been working really hard with this update to get it into a good window so that is perhaps the most satisfying thing to take from today. I was surprised to take P1; it felt like a good lap though and it’s a great result for the team because they’ve done a tremendous job on this package and we are now seeing results.
“My focus for tomorrow is purely on driving the best race I can. I hope that we can fight for the win, but we will know it won’t be easy. Our closest competitors have looked very quick, but we will aim to get a good start then take it from there.”
George Russell, 6th, 1:34.476
“We have made some good improvements with the car this weekend and moved it into a good window. The updates have proved really positive and my qualifying session was going well until we got to Q3. Ultimately it was just two bad laps from my side and that is why we ended up P6. Kimi did a great job to take pole and that shows what the car was capable of.
“Tomorrow will be a long race where strategy will play a big role. There are usually incidents here that change how the Grand Prix is playing out so we will be looking for opportunities to move forward. Our pace on Friday was relatively strong so that is encouraging. We will be giving it our all to score some good points.”
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
“Taking pole position today was beyond our expectations heading into the session. We’ve been working hard to get the car into a good window all weekend, and we’ve been chipping away at it. Ahead of qualifying though I thought we were probably fighting to sneak onto the front row but more likely for P3 or P4. Kimi pulled out an incredible lap in Q3 to take pole position to surprise us all. George wasn’t happy with his efforts in the final segment of qualifying, but he still did a solid job in what was a highly competitive session.
“What is clear with our updates is that the car now has a narrower window of operation. If we manage to get everything together then the performance is strong. We are still learning but this is another encouraging sign that we are still moving in the right direction. Tomorrow’s race will be a big test, and we know our competitors are strong, but we can hopefully fight for victory and bring home a good points score as a team.”
Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director
“Congratulations to Kimi and the team on a well-deserved pole position. Since introducing our latest updates, we’ve found it difficult to get the car into a consistent balance window. Our experience this weekend suggests that remains the case, but we’ve at least shown that the performance is there when we can get everything into the sweet spot.
“We made some reasonably large changes overnight based on the simulator work, and both drivers felt the car was a step in the right direction today. We were still struggling through the final sector though, with almost all our deficit to our competitors coming through the sequence from Turns 12 to 15.
“Kimi managed that section very well on his first run in Q3 and put together an impressive lap to take pole. George couldn’t match his Q2 time though. His final lap started with a very strong first sector, but a small mistake at Turn 11 pushed the tyre temperatures up and he didn’t have the grip from there to recover. Kimi had a similar drop-off on his final attempt, but fortunately his first lap was good enough to secure P1.
“Tomorrow will be a tough race. Some of our competitors have saved new Soft tyres and, from what we saw on Friday, the top four teams look very closely matched on race pace. Kimi is in the best possible position to fight for the win, whilst with George we should have some strategic options to help him move forward.”
