Close to the pole
Andrea Kimi Antonelli came very close to what would have been his fourth consecutive pole position this season. In his last timed attempt on the Montreal circuit, the 19-year-old from Bologna driving for Mercedes had indeed set the best time, only to be narrowly beaten by his teammate George Russell by just under a tenth.
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Comment on the qualifying
A fight for the pole position that nevertheless ended with an all-Mercedes front row, but Antonelli did not hide some disappointment about his final performance: “It was a bit of a complicated qualifying – he commented to the microphones of Sky Sport F1 – honestly I started well in Q1, then I lost a bit of rhythm and we struggled with the tires, and even in Q3 it’s never easy to do the first lap. It was a shame because obviously George had a different program, which worked, but I have to say the lap wasn’t great, I did well in the first sector, but then I had a problem with the downshift in turn 6 and slowed the car down too much, after that I lost a bit of rhythm.”
Clarification between Russell and Antonelli
Additionally, Antonelli returned to the duel between him and Russell that took place in the Sprint race, during which the championship leader went furious over the radio complaining about the British driver’s defensive maneuvers. Complaints calmed directly by team principal Toto Wolff, who intervened again via radio inviting him to stay focused on the race and to discuss what happened internally: “Certainly we had a meeting and cleared things up. What happened in the sprint we don’t want to see again, so we cleared things up and that is the most important thing.”
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