Kimi Antonelli admitted that it wasn’t a “straightforward” journey to securing pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix, despite ultimately beating the competition by more than three-tenths.
After setting the pace in FP2 and FP3, the Mercedes driver took some time to warm up during the session and lost out to rivals like Max Verstappen and George Russell in Q1, with the Briton finishing ahead of him for the first time this weekend.
However, Antonelli quickly bounced back to top the times in the second segment of Qualifying before completing a sublime lap to deny both Verstappen and Lando Norris – his final effort of 1m 44.361s saw him outpace the lead Red Bull by an impressive 0.317s.
After claiming his sixth pole of the season, Antonelli said: “It’s great to be on pole. It was not a very straightforward session – the track changed a lot but we were able to improve lap by lap and bring home pole which was nice.
“Of course, tomorrow is another day. I have Max starting next to me so it’s going to be important to get a good start and then try to be ahead into Turn 5.
“The last lap was good, I improved a lot in Sector 2 especially. [It] was a nice lap. Of course, there was still a little bit here and there but it was very clean, so I’m very happy.”
The Italian is looking to shake off a run of misfortune that led to his retirement in Barcelona, a missed opportunity for victory in Austria, and a non-scoring finish last time out at Silverstone.
Aside from Mercedes’ reliability struggles, Antonelli has regularly converted pole position into race wins and is hoping to do the same again in the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix, which would help him increase the points gap at the top of the Drivers’ standings.
“Good start and try to have good pace,” he said of his plan for race day. “Degradation of course is going to be very big but we try our best in order to maximise the performance. It’s going to be fun tomorrow.”
He will have the opportunity to claim his first win since Monaco when the lights go out at 1500 local time on Sunday, July 19 at Spa-Francorchamps.
