Kimi Antonelli's weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix began in the worst possible way with technical issues disrupting practice and a crash in Q1 forcing him to start down in 16th place. Speaking ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, the young championship leader revealed the tough decision that rescued a challenging weekend on a notoriously difficult street circuit.
Kimi Antonelli driving for Mercedes
Instead of aggressively fighting through the pack, the Italian made a conscious effort to ease off, protect his equipment, and let the race come to him. After completing 51 laps, he secured a surprising fifth-place finish.
Explaining his choice to drive under the limit, Kimi Antonelli admitted: "First of all, I didn't really like it, driving under the limit. I felt a bit too slow, but I think the learning was that sometimes you have to accept this kind of situation. You have to accept to settle for a result that even you didn't expect or you didn't want, you know, settle for a P5 before."
He noted that the race taught him more about his reactions under pressure, adding that forcing himself to take minimal risks after being used to pushing hard all season was extremely difficult.
The unique challenges of Baku meant he could not fully utilize the straight-line speed advantage of his Mercedes powertrain.
"Whilst Baku was the first time where I actually had to tell myself, 'look, just take the least amount of risks as possible and just take advantage of other people's mistake and just bring it home,' because at the end it was such a disrupted weekend where everything was going wrong... what I just needed was finishing the race with a decent result just to move on and focus onto the next one," he concluded.
Kimi Antonelli currently leads the drivers' standings with 302 points.
Source: Motorsport
