Kimi Antonelli expresses frustration about crash in Azerbaijan Grand Prix Qualifying

Kimi Antonelli will start on the grid at 16th place, with several expecting him to challenge for second in the race behind George Russell. | Photo Credit: AP

Kimi Antonelli admitted he was “mad” at himself after a self-inflicted crash in qualifying ruined his Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend despite leading the world championship.

The 20-year-old, who had already lost most of Friday practice to a hydraulics issue, said he misread how quickly grip was building on the Baku street circuit and paid the price for that misreading at Turn 1.

Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes clipped the wall in Q1, causing a puncture to one of the front tyres and damage to the suspension thereby marking his first error since the final practice crash in Australia.

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Antonelli wanted to keep running but race engineer Pete Bonnington told him it was a “fairly big job” and ordered him back to the pits.

“The grip was coming up very quickly, lap by lap,” Antonelli explained post the qualifying sessions.

“Obviously, I turned in and then suddenly I had a lot more front end than the lap before and I touched the wall.” he observed.

“It’s a mistake from my side. Very unnecessary and I’m mad about it and we’ll try to do better tomorrow. The car has been very strong all this weekend and George (Russell) has been doing incredibly well, but we’ll try our best to recover as many places as possible.”

While Antonelli faced struggles during the qualifying sessions, his team-mate George Russell went on to claim pole position marking his 12th career pole and fifth pole of the season. He finished more than eight-tenths clear of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and kept his slim title hopes alive against Antonelli’s 81-point advantage.

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Antonelli will start on the grid at 16th, with several expecting him to challenge for second in the race behind Russell.

He pointed to his Monza victory from 19th on the grid as proof he can fight back from deep on the grid.

“Kimi is starting well down again,” Russell said. “But he has shown that he can be at the back and end up on the top step a few times so… we’ll see what we have to do.”