Kimi Antonelli will start in fourth position for Sunday’s race at the 2026 F1 Austrian GP after what he described as an “unfortunate” mistake caused him to abort his final lap during qualifying.
A crash at Turn 9 in the final seconds of Q3 from Red Bull’s Max Verstappen brought out yellow flags as some drivers were completing their final hot laps. Seeing the flags, Antonelli completely aborted his lap, but his teammate George Russell continued, lifting through the corner that had caught out Verstappen and taking pole position ahead of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.
Antonelli: Yellow flag confusion “unfortunate” but pole was off the table
Speaking after the session, Antonelli described his decision to abort the lap as a “mistake”, as he thought Race Control had issued double-waved yellows – under which drivers are required to abort their laps. Russell came under investigation for a yellow flag infringement, but footage showed that only a single yellow flag was shown as he drove past Verstappen’s Red Bull in the barriers, meaning his pole-setting lap time could be retained.
“It was unfortunate but realistically it was a mistake from my side because I thought I saw double yellow and instead it was a single so I completely aborted the lap where I could have just done a lift like George did,” said Antonelli.
However, he admitted did not feel as though he had the pace to match Russell even despite the incident.
“I think I was a tenth slower than George up to that point so it would have been difficult to get pole,” he said.
“It would have been more ideal to start more at the front, but it is what it is, and the most important [thing] is that tomorrow we try to get a good start and then maximise from there.”
Antonelli: “We have the pace” for Sunday’s race at F1 Austrian GP
Antonelli put his slightly slower pace compared with his teammate down to a different set-up being run on his car, which he claims is more suited to race pace than qualifying.
“We’ve been up there all weekend and I felt strong in the car,” he said. “However, I felt in [qualifying] I didn’t feel great since the first lap because I decided to take a direction for the setup that is more race-biased than [qualifying] and I struggled a little bit.”
He continued: “It’s not that we really wanted to sacrifice [qualifying]. I felt a bit more comfortable with yesterday’s setup. But as the grid came up, it turned out that it was even more difficult than anticipated.
“So on paper it looks like it’s more race setup-biased. But let’s see. Tomorrow it’s going to be very hot and it’s going to be important to manage the tyres.”
