Antonelli third in Barcelona: “I Pushed the Car Too Hard”

Kimi Antonelli experienced his most complicated qualifying of the season at the Spanish Grand Prix, the championship leader could only manage third behind his teammate George Russell (pole) and Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari), thus breaking a streak in which he had always started from the front row in the first six races of the year.

The 19 year old Italian admitted that he has not felt comfortable throughout the weekend at the Circuit de Catalunya: "Even though I missed FP1, I think this weekend I haven't had enough single lap pace, I've been pushing the car too hard" he declared at the end of the session. The Italian could not take part in the first free practice on Friday because Mercedes gave his seat to Frederik Vesti, the team's development driver, to comply with the regulatory requirement of giving opportunities to rookies, a circumstance that may have affected his adaptation to the track.

Antonelli explained the difficulties he encountered on the Barcelona asphalt: "The conditions are very tricky, the surface is very slippery, it's very hot and the tires got a little out of my hands, I was struggling to extract the maximum from them throughout the lap," analyzed the driver, who also suffered with traffic in FP3, which prevented him from completing optimal preparation for qualifying.

Despite the difficulties, Antonelli was optimistic ahead of Sunday's race and trusts that the pace the W17 showed in the long runs on Friday will allow him to recover positions: "The race pace was good in FP2, so I hope tomorrow we have even better pace and can progress" stated the Italian, who arrives in Barcelona with a 66 point lead over Russell in the drivers' championship.

The young Mercedes driver was confident about his chances from third position on the grid: "It's going to be important to have a good start, there's a long straight to turn 1, so I'm not in a bad position, honestly" reflected Antonelli, who hopes to take advantage of any opportunity at the start to gain a position.

"It's going to be important to get the most out of the tires, manage them well because it's very hot and we'll probably see a lot of pit stops tomorrow because it's going to be hard to keep them under control" he concluded.

Antonelli will have to come from the second row on a circuit where overtaking is not easy, but Mercedes has shown to have superior pace to the rest and the Italian trusts that strategy and tire management will be his best allies to further extend his championship lead.