Championship leader Kimi Antonelli (4th) on Verstappen: “Max was too fast for us”

A disappointing qualifying session for World Championship leader Kimi Antonelli! The Italian had looked strong in the final practice session at Sepang – but things didn’t quite come together in qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. He finished in fourth place, a good half a second behind pole-setter Max Verstappen. Antonelli does, however, benefit from the engine penalty imposed on Isack Hadjar (Red Bull Racing), who actually qualified third but will start the race from eighth on the grid.

Antonelli had a wobble during the decisive phase of qualifying; he went off the track and had a fast lap time disallowed. The 20-year-old Italian said after the session: “It’s much better than I expected, with just one set of new tyres. That wasn’t easy. I made a mistake with the track limits, went into understeer and went off the track.”

Pole position wasn’t on the cards

Things might have gone a bit better under different circumstances. But it still wouldn’t have been enough for pole, according to Antonelli: “With a clean qualifying session, second place would probably have been on the cards, perhaps even third on the track, but not first. Max was simply a bit too quick for us today.” Max Verstappen was literally flying around the track in qualifying; he was uncatchable.

For Mercedes, the result is disappointing. The Silver Arrows have new parts on the car, but haven’t quite managed to make them work properly yet. Antonelli has plenty of questions: “I think we still have a lot to learn about this package. The track isn’t exactly helping either, because the tarmac is so uneven and it’s so hot that the tyres are completely overheated after just two corners. You just end up sliding around, and that makes it hard for us to understand this package. We’ve got a great chance tomorrow to pick up some good points – hopefully even to fight for the win – and I’ll be giving it my all.”

Still, thanks to Isack Hadjar’s penalty, Antonelli has moved up to third place and is now on the pole position side: “I think we’ve got a good chance tomorrow, as we’re starting from the clean side. But I still believe that Red Bull has the edge in terms of pace and that Ferrari is very close behind. But we’ll give it our best shot. I think track position will be very important, and we’ll try to manage the tyres as well as possible. If we can then fight for the win, so much the better. If we have to settle for second or third, we’ll take that too.”

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