Antonelli wants answers for his struggles at Imola

On the back of his disappointing first home race in Formula One, Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli wants to figure out why he struggled throughout the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

Mercedes driver George Russell displayed eye-catching pace in qualifying, and a smart move to complete his last push lap in Q3 on Pirelli’s mediums enabled him to fight for pole position.

Beating McLaren’s Lando Norris, the Briton ended up third on the grid. However, he lost a lot of tyre life fighting Norris at the start, and pitted very early as a result.

He endured then some misfortune with the virtual safety car, but he recovered some places by not stopping under the late Safety Car. However, being on older tyres, his former team-mate Lewis Hamilton picked him off, and he ultimately finished the Imola round in P7.

His team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli struggled for pace in qualifying, ending up only 13th on the grid on home turf. While he displayed better race pace, he stopped on track with a throttle problem which triggered a long safety car interruption.

Reflecting on his first home race, Antonelli said that while he enjoyed the support of his passionate Italian fans, he will need to improve his tyre management.

“Today was a disappointing way to end my first home Grand Prix. You never want to have a DNF but for it to come here at Imola is even more bitter.

“That said, I will treasure the memory of this weekend. The support from the fans has been incredible. They kept cheering for me each and every lap, despite the struggles with our performance.

“Sadly, we just didn’t have the pace to fight for the top five today. I made a good start despite being on the Hard compound, but the speed in the car wasn’t there to move forward after that.

Antonelli continued: “I defended really hard in that first stint and managed to keep Lewis (Hamilton) behind me. We took advantage of the Virtual Safety Car to make our stop but after that, I started to have an issue with the throttle.

“I started to lose power on the straights and every lap it was getting worse before we had to retire the car. We have the opportunity to bounce back straight away in Monaco so we will take the learnings from here and apply them to next weekend.”

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