After a dramatic Hungarian GP, Kimi Antonelli scored his first points of the European season after securing P10, finishing just ahead of Isack Hadjar. The young Italian driver has struggled in his Mercedes since F1 arrived in Europe.
Antonelli DNF’d in Austria after a late braking mistake saw him take out reigning World Champion Max Verstappen. The Mercedes driver then went on to DNF again at Silverstone and then finished 86 seconds off the lead in Belgium.
Antonelli labels Hungary as “tough”
After a hard-fought P10 at the Hungarian GP, Antonelli stated that he felt he was able to to be much more “consistent” across the race. He stated, “I mean, first point of the European, yeah, it was tough. It was tough because first of all, it was not the plan to do one stop, but then considering the position where we were, we decided to just keep going also because the pace was quite decent and especially when I was in free air, I was able to improve the time and be consistent.“
He further mentioned, “It was difficult,” but is “happy to have brought the first point of the European season.“
Feeling determined going into three week summer break
After missing out on points since Canada, where he got his first Formula 1 podium, Antonelli is very determined to work hard and come back strong after the summer break after the Hungarian GP.
The Italian stated, “Definitely, I’m happy that, you know, with your suspension, the feeling came back and definitely, you know, I can build from here and yeah, now summer break, I will rest, I will train in order to come back fitter and stronger.”
Kimi Antonelli will be even more determined to continue a stronger run of form after his teammate, George Russell, has outscored him at every race so far this season. Moving forward to the last two European races at the Dutch and Italian GP, Antonelli will be hoping to push forward and continue to score points before F1 moves on to Baku.
Antonelli lies on the fringe of the top six in the driver’s championship after his difficult first half of the season.
Currently seventh with 64 points, he is ten ahead of Alex Albon, and 45 points behind sixth placed Lewis Hamilton.
The young Italian is a long way behind foruth placed team-mate George Russell, trailing the Briton by 108 points with ten races remaining.
