Andrea Kimi Antonelli suffered a disastrous crash in Formula 1 qualifying in Azerbaijan, ending his hopes of pole in Q1.
The Championship leader clipped the wall in Turn 1, damaging his front-left suspension and taking him out of the session.
Luckily, his last good lap was fast enough to assure him a place in Q2, but the damage was quite literally done. As a result, he starts 16th on the grid tomorrow.
Naturally, Antonelli’s frustration was palpable, and he admitted he ‘wasn’t 100% there’ in the session. His weekend has been far from smooth, with car issues disrupting his earlier practice sessions on Thursday.
He spoke to the media about how disruptions hurt the weekend’s rhythm, and a small mistake left him out of pole contention.
“I missed three-quarters of FP1, half of FP2, so then you just don’t get in the rhythm. But then obviously I made a mistake today, so it’s both. Also my side.
“Definitely I wasn’t 100 percent there.”
Initially, after the contact, Antonelli was desperate to fix the car and continue, communicating with the garage and his race engineer, Peter Bonnington, who told the Mercedes driver to pull the car over because the damage was too severe to continue.
Kimi Antonelli to ‘reset’
Antonelli confessed that it was frustrating not being able to get back out on track. He said: “It was frustrating. I tried my best to come in, but then they told me that the damage was too big, so I had to bail out.
“Which is even more annoying because obviously I was hoping they could repair it. Also, because that lap would have been still okay to get through.
“But unfortunately it was not possible, so we will reset and move on.”
The Mercedes is still the fastest car on the grid, which is shown by Antonelli’s teammate clinching pole position. The climb from the back of the grid to the front isn’t outside the realm of possibility for the Italian, who managed the same feat in Monza.
Although it’s harder to overtake around the Baku street circuit than the Temple of Speed, Antnelli’s focus is on the start and staying out of trouble.
“Good start, stay out of trouble and then try to set a really good pace,” he said.
“Obviously it’s going to be a bit harder than Monza because it’s a bit harder to overtake here, but I believe we can still do a good race.”
Despite the difficult result, the Italian still leads the championship battle by an impressive 81 points, which keeps him comfortably ahead even after a difficult weekend.
READ MORE: George Russell capitalises on Antonelli shunt with dominant F1 Baku pole
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