World Championship leader Kimi Antonelli (16th): “We had a real chance of winning”

For Kimi Antonelli, the Grand Prix at the Silverstone Circuit took a dramatic turn. The 19-year-old championship leader had previously secured victory in the sprint race and pole position for Sunday’s Grand Prix, but lost the lead right at the start. Yet the fast teenager from Bologna refused to be deterred; he first fought his way past Lewis Hamilton and, following a late tyre change on lap 35, closed the gap to the second Ferrari – driven by Charles Leclerc – with a significant speed advantage.

But then his car broke down; Antonelli headed for the pits several times, first to fit a new nose cone, but that didn’t help, and eventually it became clear: Antonelli had damaged part of the brake ventilation on his left front wheel whilst riding over the kerbs, causing it to jam. The team wanted to bring the championship leader into the pits to retire the car, but Antonelli stubbornly insisted on staying on the track because he was still in tenth place at that point and had a chance of scoring a championship point.

Safety car cost Kimi Antonelli the final championship point

However, because he went off the track too often due to his faulty GP car, he was handed a 5-second penalty. As a result, he was ultimately classified in sixteenth place and came away empty-handed. Afterwards, he explained: “To be honest, we’d had an incredible run of form with five wins in a row. I suppose everything was going a bit too well for me, and then I scored zero points in two out of three races.”

That’s a bitter pill to swallow, the star rider admitted. “Because in Barcelona I was running second when the technical trouble struck, and here I think we had a real chance of winning. I was within striking distance. So it’s a shame that I didn’t even have the chance to give it a go. But it is what it is,” he added with a sigh.

“The most important thing is that we fight back,” Antonelli declared defiantly, but he also emphasised: “I couldn’t believe it, because I went from bad to worse. I was sure that tenth place was still salvageable – despite the penalty, because the car was still somehow drivable, even though I’d lost a lot of downforce. I was in the process of building up the lead I needed to make up for the penalty. But then the safety car came out because of Max Verstappen’s retirement, and that’s when I knew the race was over.”

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