Antonelli becomes youngest pole sitter ever in Formula One
At just 19 years of age, Italian Kimi Antonelli has become the youngest pole man in the history of F1. The Mercedes driver beat his teammate, partly due to technical problems for him. Lewis Hamilton was third fastest and will lead a Ferrari second row lockout on tomorrow's starting grid.
Hours after finishing the sprint race, F1 is back in action with qualifying for Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix. Within the first two minutes, every driver bar the Mercedes duo was out on track. Most immediately on the softest Pirelli compound but Red Bull and Ferrari opted to go with the mediums.
By the time Antonelli started his first flying lap, Piastri topped the timing sheet, a tenth ahead of Hulkenberg and 4 tenths faster than Hulkenberg. Hadjar, Norris and Verstappen filled the next positions.
After the Mercedes had set the best times so far on fresh softs, Hamilton sharpened his best to third, little more than 2 tenths down on Russell. Norris followed that up pretty much matching the Ferrari's time but it was Leclerc who was finally able to beat Mercedes, albeit by just 8 hundredths.
The second part of qualifying of course had everybody compete on the softest tyres. Both Mercedes were out first this time, setting an early benchmark they would later improve upon. Ferrari were once again well in the mix, looking again like the team closest to Mercedes with McLaren slightly behind, but thereabouts.
Towards the end of this session it also became evident again that the Red Bulls' improvements over yesterday weren't perhaps that impressive, definitely not when it comes to absolute positions. The gap to the front is less than in Sprint Qualifying, but neither was able to come near the pace of the Ferraris for example.
Pierre Gasly on the other hand underlined his earlier statement of liking his Alpine a lot around this track, ending Q2 in fifth fastest. His team mate Colapinto on the other hand missed out on Q3 by a mere hundredths and was seen being comforted by team principal Flavio Briatore.
At the start of Q3, Russell repeated there was an issue with his car, stopping on track after T2. The Briton had reported major understeer at the end of Q2, and now said there was massive engine braking. As Russell reset his car, his team didn't appear to see a problem. After the reset, Russell got his car going and slowly completed the lap to return to the pits and get his team to take a look.
Meanwhile, Kimi Antonelli had swept past his teammate to end up fastest by the time everybody had completed their first timed laps. Crucially for McLaren, Piastri and Norris slotted into second and third, beating both Ferraris as the latter were visibly struggling to get the power down in various places on the track, forcing steering wheel corrections as the rear stepped out.
As cars emerged for their second laps, Mercedes was still furiously working on Russel's car. Wheels went off, went on again. The car got connected electrically do the pit systems and a steering wheel change was done. It took ages, but eventually, with 2:22 left on the clock, the car was grounded and he could leave the pits.
Antonelli improved on his earlier lap by another 2 tenths but all eyes were then on Russell who had a solid lap but probably lacked a bit of feeling or confidence, ending up 0.222s behind his teammate. Behind the once again impressive Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton narrowly beat his teammate for a Ferrari second row on the grid,
