Andrea Kimi Antonelli struggled to make up for his qualifying error in the Austrian Grand Prix, taking his second worst race result of the season at the Red Bull Ring.
After a mechanical DNF in Barcelona, championship leader Antonelli would have been hoping to extend his gap to Hamilton and Russell in the standings. Instead he was met with more mistakes and car problems.
Max Verstappen’s Q3 crash and Antonelli’s subsequent yellow flag blunder left him to qualify in P4. This position that was quickly jeopardised in the race following a poor start and issue-ridden first stint.
The Italian might have been overconfident after topping the times in both Friday practice sessions, saying he may have ‘lowered the intensity’ too much going into Saturday and Sunday. Referring to the Verstappen crash/yellow flag incident, he added that without aborting his last lap he still believes he didn’t have the pace of his teammate.
“Yeah, it was a weekend where I started very strong and I think because of that, I kind of lowered the intensity a bit too much. And, coming to qualifying, I just felt a bit tense driving-wise.
“We’re still up there, but I felt like I wasn’t driving that well and not as free. And, of course the last lap, it went like that, but I was a tenth behind George. So it probably would have been, P2, very close, but of course it went like that.
“Obviously starting from P4, [the] first laps were really bad for me. And then I really struggled with brakes. I just lost a lot of time because I started to do mistakes. But yeah, then second stint was a bit better. And then third stint was really, very strong.
“The pace was just there, but of course [I] fell a bit short.”
Could Antonelli have challenged Russell for the win?
Antonelli still showed moments of pace throughout and may have been able to better challenge for positions had he delivered a better start. He crossed the line just three tenths behind Verstappen, who was in turn only 1.6 seconds away from Russell.
“The whole first stint, I think at the end of the first stint that is, [a] couple of mistakes and I lost probably one second, one and a half seconds, each lap. Because one time I went off, almost went off in Turn 4, one lap I went off in Turn 3. So I lost a lot of time, but of course it’s, I think, easy to say now.
“The mistakes were made and, I mean, you know, without them [I] probably could have had the chance to fight for P2 or even P1. But of course, easy to say now and need to make sure they don’t happen again.”
Excluding his DNF, P3 is Antonelli’s lowest finishing position in 2026.
READ MORE – George Russell resists Max Verstappen challenge in Austria to reignite F1 title hopes
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