Antonelli reveals what "made him a little worried" at Las Vegas
On the back of his sensational comeback drive at last Saturday's Las Vegas Grand Prix, Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli revealed that signs of possible graining made him "a little worried" in the closing stages of the 50-lap Nevadan race.
George Russell had an ordinary start and managed to capitalize on Lando Norris’ small error at Turn 1 to move himself up into second place on the opening lap.
Although he looked very competitive in the opening stages of the race and put race leader Max Verstappen under pressure, he struggled to keep his tyre alive and elected to pit earlier than his rivals.
As a result of his early pit stop, he managed to close in on Verstappen after the first round of pit stops, but he used too much tyre life. While he was trying to look after his tyres, Norris closed in on him and managed to go past Russell. The Mercedes driver finished third, but he inherited second place after Norris’ disqualification for a technical infringement.
His team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli started from P17 after his difficult qualifying session. The Bologna-born driver started on the softs, pitted early for the hards under the Virtual Safety Car intervention.
Although several drivers struggled to keep the tyres in good shape, Antonelli somehow managed to make that compound last all the way to the flag.
In the closing stages, Oscar Piastri and Charles Leclerc closed in on Antonelli, putting him under great pressure, but he managed to hold the McLaren and the Ferrari driver at bay for lap after lap.
In the closing stages, he managed to escape from Leclerc enough to finish ahead of the Monegasque despite a five-second time penalty for jumping the start. Ultimately, he came home fifth, but he inherited P3 with the later disqualification of both McLaren cars.
"I am very happy with how our race went this evening," Antonelli started his assessement. "It felt like redemption after yesterday where we were knocked out in Q1. It was a shame that we started so far back as without that, we would have definitely been in the hunt right at the front.
"That said, we need to be pleased with how we performed today and that we were able to add good points for the team after a difficult qualifying."
The Bologna-born driver revealed that signs of possible graining made him "a little worried" in the closing stages of the 50-lap Nevadan race.
"Halfway through the race I started to see some graining on the front tyres. That made me a little worried that we would be forced into a second stop and lose the positions we had gained.
"I was focused on talking to the tyres and just asking them to hold on! Eventually the graining cleaned up and I was able to put some strong laps in and limit the damage of our penalty to take P5."
