Ahead of everyone
The first free practice session had been ‘sleepy’ and disappointing for Mercedes at Spa, probably due to a completely wrong setup. However, in the afternoon session, with a much better balanced car, Andrea Kimi Antonelli woke up and set the best time of the session with a significant margin over all the main rivals. Apart from Norris, who was 190 thousandths behind the World Championship leader, the other gaps were all around half a second or more. Even his teammate George Russell took a gap of one second and two tenths from the Bolognese.
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There is always room for improvement
“Yes, we made big changes to the car [between FP1 and FP2] and now it’s much better – Antonelli told Sky Sports F1 – so we are on the right track. Obviously, there is still a lot of work to do both as a team and regarding my driving style. But it was definitely a better session [compared to the morning] and now I can’t wait for tomorrow“.
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However, Antonelli appeared very motivated and eager to erase the disappointment of Silverstone, where he was slowed down by a technical problem when he was about to fight for the win with Charles Leclerc: “Silverstone was a fantastic weekend [performance-wise], but we came out without points, which obviously hurt us a lot. This weekend is different and represents a new challenge. The goal is still to make the most of every session and, every time I get in the car, to achieve the best possible result. Surely today was a good conclusion. But now there is a lot of work to do ahead of tomorrow“. Insatiable Kimi.
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