Kimi Antonelli: The championship leader is expecting these rivals at Silverstone

For Kimi Antonelli, the last two World Championship rounds in Barcelona and Spielberg did not go to plan. The young championship leader, who started the Barcelona race weekend with a 68-point lead over his Mercedes team-mate George Russell, suffered a bitter retirement in the final laps on the Spanish circuit. The teenager was on course for a podium finish when his power unit’s battery failed. Although he was classified in 16th place, he came away empty-handed.

In the following race at the Red Bull Ring, the speedy curly-haired driver bounced back with a third-place finish on the podium. However, his lead in the World Championship over Russell continued to shrink, as the Briton secured his second win of the season on the Styrian circuit, following his triumph at the season-opener in Melbourne’s Albert Park. There are now 40 points separating the two star drivers.

Nevertheless, Antonelli is not worried about losing momentum in the World Championship battle. When asked about this, he explained: “No, of course there’s a strong desire to make amends after the last two races didn’t go well, considering how good our pace was.”

The 19-year-old goes on to say: “The race in Barcelona went quite well, but then I had a problem which, unfortunately, led to a retirement. In Austria, I felt very comfortable in the car. But in qualifying I was a bit too relaxed and didn’t get the best out of the car and the tyres. And then there was the yellow flag incident – George handled that situation well.”

In the race, he made life difficult for himself even before the first pit stop because he made two mistakes and then had problems braking, explained the self-critical Italian. “I lost a lot of time because of that. Without those mistakes, I’d have had a better chance of fighting for the win or at least second place.”

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This makes his determination to shine at Silverstone all the greater. Antonelli insisted: “I’m really excited because I think this is one of the best race weekends of the season and there’s a really great crowd, so I’m really looking forward to it. I hope it’ll be a good weekend; the car is very strong, but of course we expect Red Bull Racing, McLaren and Ferrari to be in the mix too.”