The F1 Abu Dhabi GP was not a walk in the park for Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli. After Qualifying P14, the Italian had a rough race and finished the last race of the season in P15.
The weak race pace was not what the team had hoped for. Starting on the hard, the young Italian dropped spots at the start and never looked like making progress through the pack all day.
Antonelli expressed his struggles with the pace in the written press pen after the race, stating:
“Today, we just didn’t have the pace. I really struggled in the car. Probably, one of the times where I struggled most in a race car, and yeah, just difficult. I didn’t have pace and obviously always in dirty air and just really difficult to make any progress. It was a shame, but overall, first season done and looking forward to the next one.”
With his first Formula 1 season concluded, the rookie managed to bring several strong performances this year. He grabbed his maiden podium back in Canada before finishing on the podium again in Brazil and Vegas. Despite the weak performance at the F1 Abu Dhabi GP, his rookie campaign has been solid.
Antonelli: “We didn’t have pace”
The rookie began the 58-lap race on hard tyres before opting for medium tyres. When asked if it if was worth it trying the hard tyres, Antonelli admitted starting on softs and boxing early for hards to get clean air like Lewis Hamilton might have worked. The seven-time World Champion finished P8 from 16th on the grid.
“Well, probably what Lewis [Hamilton] did was the best but it’s easy to say now. My start was not the best, I got some wheelspin on the second release. It was also the fact that we didn’t have pace, it didn’t help. For sure if we had better pace, probably I could have made much more progress.”
Pushing hard but not taking risks
Antonelli continued to be asked how the F1 Abu Dhabi GP was physically and responded:
“It was okay, it was much easier than Qatar.
“I’m pretty tired. This weekend I didn’t feel the best physically and health-wise, so looking forward to some rest,” Antonelli added.
The young Italian was one of many drivers struggling to keep all four wheels on track. Antonelli was shown the black and white flag, on which he expressed:
“On the hard I was pushing hard just to try and maintain position. I went off track a couple of times, it was not easy at the end. But also with having no pace, I didn’t take any risk at the end so it was okay.”
Focus on P2 in the Constructors’ Championship
Despite the team’s struggles, Mercedes managed to secure P2 in the Constructors’ Championship. The team conclude the season with 469 points in the Standings.
When asked about his conversations with the pit wall, and the mention of teammate George Russell struggling with pace as well in the F1 Abu Dhabi GP as he finished a very distant P5, Antonelli stated:
“We both really struggled for pace. I think it was very, very difficult. I talked with him and he said that he struggled massively as well with the car. The goal today was just to bring it home and bring home P2. We didn’t also want to risk too much with the car, with the ride heights and being on the limit of getting a disqualification just to extract the maximum of performance. So I think also that didn’t help. The most important is that we brought home the P2 in the Championship.”
