Antonelli hopes cooler conditions will "bring the car towards us"
Having struggled to match his team-mate George Russell's pace in the final segment of qualifying, Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli hopes that cooler conditions will "bring the car towards us."
Mercedes struggled for pace in the hot conditions on Friday. However, in the cooler conditions, the Brackley-based outfit had hoped that the cloud cover would improve its chances.
The German-British outfit managed to get both cars to the last segment of qualifying, but had to use an extra set of tyres to do so. As such, they could only go for one run on fresh rubber to their rivals’ two.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli displayed encouraging performance over the weekend, but he wound up seventh, albeit he will only start from P10 on the grid due to his penalty from the Austrian Grand Prix.
George Russell looked to struggle to match Antonelli's pace across the practice sessions, but he put in a good final lap to grab fourth place on the grid for his home grand prix.
Having struggled to match his team-mate George Russell's pace in the final segment of qualifying, Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli hopes that cooler conditions will "bring the car towards us."
"It hasn’t been an easy weekend for us so far, but we were able to put in a solid performance come Qualifying. My lap was nothing special and I struggled in sector two, but the rest of the lap was OK.
"We’ve been lacking a bit of stability in the high-speed, which is not the feeling you want around a track like Silverstone with so many fast corners. On my final effort, the rear wasn’t quite as planted as I would have liked; that cost me a bit of confidence and probably a little bit of time too.
"We will see what we can do tomorrow. We have to serve our three-place grid penalty from Austria which is not ideal but hopefully the conditions will present us with some opportunities.
"There is some rain on the forecast, and it should be much cooler than it was on Friday anyway. That should hopefully bring the car towards us. We will see what we’re facing come lights out and build from there," the Italian noted.
