Kimi Antonelli spoils Ferrari’s party; team principal Vasseur pulls a strategic trick

Of all people, it’s an Italian who’s spoiling Ferrari’s party at the historic Silverstone circuit: Kimi Antonelli secured pole position for his Mercedes in the final practice session for the British Grand Prix, ahead of the two Ferrari drivers, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.

Of course, the proud Scuderia had been hopeful of securing the top spot on the grid once again following Hamilton’s fine sprint pole, but Kimi had other ideas – as he had already hinted at with his sprint victory ahead of Hamilton.

Following the entertaining qualifying session, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur spoke about what had just happened (the qualifying) and what lay ahead (the Grand Prix).

The Frenchman said: “First of all, I’m happy for Charles that he managed to set the second-fastest time here. It’s true that we’ve made some changes to the set-up so that he can perform better again. I’m happy for him because he’s been under a lot of pressure recently.”

“We weren’t able to beat Antonelli in the sprint. It won’t be any easier in the race because Mercedes have better top speed than us. So overtaking will be tricky. But in a Grand Prix you have different strategic options than in a sprint, so we’re already working out a plan.”

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“We have the advantage of having two cars up front. That gives us the opportunity to take different strategic approaches, which could prove to be an advantage.”

“And then we also need to keep an eye on energy management. We saw in the Sprint just how strange some of the overtaking manoeuvres were, depending on how differently the drivers manage their electric energy. I reckon that’ll carry over into the Grand Prix, and it’s up to us and the drivers to be smarter than the competition.”