Miami (AFP) – Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff heralded Kimi Antonelli’s emergence on Saturday after the Italian teen stunned rivals with a dazzling lap to capture pole position for Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix.
The 19-year-old Italian, the youngest championship leader in F1 history, clocked a time of one minute and 27.798 seconds with his first lap in Q3 to jump four-tenths clear of his competitors and, effectively, take pole without needing an improved second lap.
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“That first lap, it was really special,” Wolff said. “He was three or more tenths ahead of the next car…but then we were having over-confidence and over-pushing it, but that’s how he is.” Wolff, who has overseen Antonelli’s rise from prodigy to pace-setter, made clear the Italian’s youth and inexperience still needed to be taken into consideration, but said he felt he was no longer prone to mistakes.
“It’s an improvement because in the past he would have ended up in the wall, but now it’s just a missed lap – now he’s showing his speed, which is really nice to see. Trusting in Kimi…you can look like a fool or you can look great. Our junior programme is doing a diligent job and you can look at his trajectory and you see the pace and speed.
“It just needed development, which we gave him last year, when he made his mistakes. Now, there is more to come, but I think he has good speed and character traits.”
Antonelli joined an elite club when he took his third career pole in consecutive races — a feat achieved previously by multiple champions Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher.
Asked about joining such elite company, the curly-haired Italian smiled modestly and said it was “very nice” but spoke more about the challenge of driving in the heat at the Miami International Autodrome.
“It was very hot and it wasn’t easy,” he said. “The track is slippery and it’s not easy to put the sectors together, but I’m happy with the lap and feel there’s more on the table.”
Asked about the prospect of severe rainstorms in Florida on Sunday, he warned that it would be extremely slippery. “If it’s wet and we have a rolling start, that will take the usual start element out of it. And if it rains a lot, let’s see what happens with the timings so that we don’t have to have crazy conditions.
“It will be slippery in the wet and we all have so little experience driving these cars in the wet, but it’s the same for everyone.”
Antonelli leads team-mate George Russell by 75 points to 68 in the title race after Saturday’s sprint race, in which he was penalised five seconds for exceeding track limits and dropped from fourth to sixth. He will be seeking a third consecutive Grand Prix triumph on Sunday after successive victories in China and Japan before F1’s enforced five-week hiatus due to the conflict in the Middle East.
© 2024 AFP
