‘Mea culpa’ for Antonelli after not getting pole: “We had a chance”

Many drivers blame their machinery at every opportunity, explaining how its pace has left them without the possibility of obtaining better results. It is not the case of Kimi Antonelli after qualifying for the Dutch GP. “I’ve always been against the flow and on the last lap I made a mistake in Turn 1 and I lost a couple of tenths there. It was my mistake, and it’s a shame because, if not, we had a real chance to fight for that pole.”

It is much less difficult for new pilots to recognize mistakes than those of yesteryear. Gone are the 70s and 80s, where the number of sensors in cars was minimal, so If the driver said it was the car’s problem, it was the car’s problem, period..

They no longer have anywhere to hide and many are quick to admit their mistakes. The most famous moment of a driver admitting his mistake probably came at the 2019 Baku GP thanks to Charles Leclercand his “I’m stupid, I’m stupid” after ending up against the wall in Q2 in a totally unnecessary way because his previous time was already good enough to reach Q3.

“We had a chance, but when I started that lap in Q3, I saw that I was 2 tenths away in the first sector and I thought it would be difficult, although then I was able to make up the time for the rest of the lap”. Antonelli is +0.133 tenths off the pole, 0.073 of which were 100% in his hands. Russell closed the first sector at 24,300, while the Italian made 24,373.

In the other two sectors he did beat Russell, he even set the fastest time of the third, but it was not enough to obtain more than a third place which does not leave him in the position he would like, given how difficult it is to overtake on this circuit. The one from Bologna made it quite clear during the post-classification interview for F1: the possibility of obtaining pole position was in his hands in that first sector.

Tomorrow he will have the complicated task of trying to overtake his teammate before the stops, so that his strategy is not compromised by being behind him on the track.

On the positive side, it seems evident that he will achieve more points advantage with the second in the championship, a Lewis Hamilton He starts from fifth position and has not been particularly fast at any time during the weekend.