Kimi Antonelli: It feels pretty good!

Antonelli secured his second consecutive victory with a recovery drive that combined opportunism and outright pace, overcoming a poor launch to take control once the race settled.

Reflecting on the result, Antonelli remained measured: “It feels pretty good! Of course, it’s too early to think about the championship, but we are on a good way. I had a terrible start. I need to check what happened. Then I was lucky with the Safety Car to be in the lead, but then the pace was incredible. It was really nice. The second stint I felt very good with the car. I’m very pleased with that.”

Antonelli pointed directly to his start as the key flaw in an otherwise dominant performance, admitting it remains a weakness that must be addressed. He explained the issue and its importance: “I can practice some clutch drops to get a better feel with it because, definitely, it’s been a weak point so far this year. I need to improve that because you can easily win or lose races with that.

“On the medium, we were strong once we had free air, and on the hard, the pace was incredible. I don’t know what the outcome would have been without the Safety Car, but it made my life a lot easier," added Antonelli, who, once in clean air, controlled the race with authority.

In the other Mercedes, George Russell’s race unfolded in stark contrast, with strategy timing and a technical fault combining to cost him a shot at victory.

He outlined how the race slipped away: “We’ve had a lot of bad luck this weekend and that is unfortunate as we were definitely in the fight for the win today.

“After a difficult start, we’d managed to get ourselves back to P2 but stopped just one lap before the safety car was deployed. That changed the complexion of the race and unfortunately, after taking the restart in P3, we lost two more positions as a result firstly of hitting the harvesting limit and then an unexpected superclip.

“It was pretty frustrating but that’s the way racing goes sometimes. It’s clear from this weekend that our competitors are beginning to optimise their cars much more now.”

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff confirmed a software fault contributed to Russell losing position to Charles Leclerc: “It was a bug in the electrical system in the software to try to give him an advantage.

“What it gave was a super clip that slowed the car down and this is where he unexpectedly lost the position to Leclerc, so we didn’t cover ourselves in glory with George’s race.”

Wolff praised Antonelli’s rapid progress while warning against the dangers of premature championship expectations. He reflected on the scale of the achievement: “It seemed like years ago when he was a kid. He met James Allison who thought it was a kid who lost his parents and was looking for someone.

“It’s incredible. Yesterday, he was 14 and today he was 19. He’s won two races in a row in F1 and we are really happy about the development that he’s taken. We need to protect him now from people talking about World Championships.”

At the same time, Wolff acknowledged that both driver and team still have work to do, particularly on race starts: “A botched start but these kids learn in driving school with automatic! We need to teach them how to release a clutch slowly, steadily and not too quick.

“We are not giving them the easiest of tools. Our starts have been on the mediocre side and we need to improve that. But in the race, he made his way up and, at the moment it mattered, he was really fast," beamed Wolff.

Despite another victory, Mercedes leave Suzuka aware that their advantage is narrowing, with rivals beginning to extract more from the new regulations.

Wolff underlined that Russell’s compromised weekend masked the true picture: “With equal cars, it’s going to be close but the moment where it was about going fast, we had to decide to protect the position against Leclerc but Kimi was putting in perfect times, so that made the difference. But he did not have a car that was perfect.”

Mercedes continue to set the benchmark early in the season, but as Antonelli himself made clear, the championship fight is only just beginning and the chasing pack are closing in rapidly.
(Reporting by Agnes Carlier at Suzuka)