Hit by Kimi Antonelli in Australia’s third training session!
The Italian lost control of his Mercedes in the second corner, violently colliding with the containment barrier and destroying his W17.
Finally, Mercedes showed its cards at the Australian GP, just before qualifying. Until the third training session, the Silver Arrows had shown a certain forced shyness, so as not to scare them. However, in the free test this Saturday, they opened their wings (not Red Bull’s) and flew, because George Russell had the best time with an abysmal difference of 616 thousandths over Lewis Hamilton, the second. However, the gesture of Toto Wolff, the director of the Brackley team, was angry. Because? The thing is Kimi Antonelli destroyed his W17.
ANDThe young Italian had been firm in the preseason and this Saturday he aimed to fight with his English teammate for the lead, but with 13 minutes left before the end of the delayed third round of testing (he started 20 minutes late due to the Formula 3 accident) andThe Bolognese lost control of his Mercedes in the second curve of Melbourne Park when he hit the curb at high speed and, already out of control, ended up hitting the wall with tremendous violence.
Pieces of the Mercedes were scattered all over the track and the run was stopped with a red flag. With three minutes left it resumed, while Antonelli arrived at the pits and received a warm greeting from his engineer, Peter Bonnington. Between the delay in the start of the session due to the F3 crash and the enormous damage suffered by the chassis (perhaps it even had to be changed) it seemed very difficult for the Italian to participate in qualifying.
Mercedes closed the round with very contrasting feelings: Russell flew and Antonelli destroyed his car. Thus, the Englishman showed the level of the Mercedes (the car that everyone pointed out as a great candidate at the beginning of the World Championship) and put on the sign of a candidate to win in Melbourne. But…
The big question for everyone is reliability. Several teams suffered problems, without reaching the summit of Aston Martin (Lance Stroll did not start in the third round due to problems with the combustion engine), but Williams suffered with its two cars. Carlos Sainz took a turn and was thrown and his teammate Alex Albon He also had problems, but he was able to continue. They had a bad time at McLaren on Friday: Lando Norris missed half a session on Friday and came eighth on Saturday. Oscar Piastri appeared as the strongest man in Woking.
Behind Russell the two Ferraris lined up, with Hamilton ahead of Charles Leclerc (he lost by 158 thousandths to his teammate). La Rossa, as expected, is the team that can put up the most battle against Mercedes, although the race pace of the Silver Arrows makes them unreachable. And behind him was Piastri, fourth and, immediately, the two Red Bulls, with Isack Hadjar ahead of Max Verstappen.
