Antonelli feels himself "better and better in the car every weekend"

F1 Grand Prix, GP Miami, Miami

Having displayed another eye-catching performance in qualifying for the Miami Grand Prix, Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli has revealed that his confidence in his W16 is growing every weekend.

Having become the 14th Italian to set the fastest lap in a grid-deciding session, Andrea Kimi Antonelli endured a slow getaway from the grid, having suffered some wheelspin. As a result, he found Oscar Piastri alongside, and he slightly ran off the track, and dropped to fourth.

He then collided with Max Verstappen, and although he was able to continue, he was left without any points in the sprint. He then displayed a strong performance in the main qualifying session to wound up third, 0.002s off the front row.

His team-mate George Russell stayed out of trouble to finish fifth in the Miami F1 Sprint, but he slightly struggled in qualifying, ending up fifth after complaining about grip at the front axle of his W16.

Asked about his final push lap in qualifying, Antonelli insisted that he struggled for clean laps in the main qualifying session, but his final flying lap was satisfying except a mistake in the opening sector.

"It was quite OK. I struggled a little bit during the qualifying. I felt like I didn't have such a clean run as yesterday’s Sprint Quali. I struggled more today to put the tyre in the right window and to extract the best out of it during the whole lap. I think the last lap was a bit better on that side, still not amazing, but really happy with the result.

Antonelli has displayed an improved performance so far in Miami compared to his previous qualifying session in his debut year with Mercedes. Explaining his gains, the Bologna-born driver said that he managed to find the limits of his W16 better than at the previous races.

"Definitely. I mean, every weekend is learning and experience and more confidence with the car as well. So really, really happy with how every weekend I'm more able to play a lot more with the car and trying to explore the limit as well.

"So far this weekend I felt really good in the car. So that's definitely a positive. And hopefully tomorrow we can do a good race. I did FP1 and I felt good and I was able to push the car more to the limit. I think that is down a lot to also experience and confidence.

"I think also having a week break after a triple-header was really helpful as well for myself to gather all the information. So definitely a lot of experience, also understanding how to extract more out of the tyre during the whole lap—something I haven’t been doing well during the season.

"There's still room for improvement, but yeah, I feel better and better in the car every weekend. So hopefully after this weekend, we're going to European tracks, tracks that I know well, and hopefully I can maintain the same pace or even go faster.

Pushed on to reveal his targets for today's race in Miami, Antonelli stated: "I don't really want to say because it always goes terribly wrong! So I'm just going try to have a good start and then try to set a good pace and stay with Max and Lando.

"It's not going to be easy of course, but we'll see , first of all, how's the weather, because there are some thunderstorms probably, so that might not be really nice. But yeah, let's just see how the weather is going to be and then we'll try to do our best with what we have.

"Definitely also in FP1 we did quite a long run, so we were able to collect good data on the dry and hopefully we can have a good pace in the race."