Andrea Kimi Antonelli said he “drove like my grandmother” after securing a fifth-placed finish at the Formula 1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
After his Monza exploits from the back of the grid to win his home race, just two weeks ago, Antonelli was slated to start the 51-lap race at Baku from 16th on the grid.
Crashing out of Q1 on Friday, Antonelli started the Azerbaijan GP pretty much on the backfoot compared to his pole-sitter team-mate George Russell.
The chaos that ensued during the race, however, allowed Antonelli to mount a stellar comeback, taking the chequered flag in fifth.
The 20-year-old picked up floor damage after contact with the Haas of Oliver Bearman at the Safety Car restart, into Turn 1.
This, Antonelli believes, meant P5 on the road was the best he was capable of extracting from his W17.
“Yeah, no, it was bad positioning and… But yeah, today I was driving a bit like my grandmother today,” he joked with media.
“Just damage [control]. You know, just didn’t take a risk. Before making a move, I was making sure that I could go for it.
“But at the same time, after the restart, I had a big floor damage. My whole left side was gone with the contact. After that, the car was very sketchy to drive.
“Still tried to get to P4, but all in all, it’s one of those days where you have to be happy with P5.”
Kimi Antonelli details why ‘all or nothing’ mindset changed “very quickly” for him at F1 Azerbaijan GP
After his qualifying mishap on Friday, Antonelli had said he had “nothing to lose” going into the race.
But he admitted that seeing his pace, comparative to the field around him, meant he had changed his mindset very quickly.
The Mercedes driver found it difficult to make moves on outright pace differential and rather tried keep his W17 between the white lines, as the others around him struggled, to make his gains.
“If I had the pace, it would have been different. If I had the same pace as Monza or in previous races, it would have been different,” Antonelli explained.
“It would have been just full attack. But today I realised very early that, first of all, it was a lot harder to overtake. With a [train of cars] all in overtake mode.
“And then I didn’t have the same pace as I had previously. The mindset changed very quickly. And also seeing so many people doing mistakes, you kind of pull back a little bit.
“Because today I just took advantage of everyone else’s mistake and just moved forward.”
As Russell took the race win, by the slimmest of margins, from Max Verstappen, Antonelli lost ground to his Mercedes team-mate in the championship standings.
Heading to the Sepang International Circuit, Antonelli leads Russell by 66 points.
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