‘I was driving like my grandma’ – Antonelli admits to lack of confidence

World championship leader Kimi Antonelli says he was driving “like his grandmother” during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix because of a lack of confidence at the Baku City Circuit.

Antonelli staged a decent recovery in Saturday’s race to come from 16th on the grid, following a crash in qualifying, to finish fifth, but his championship lead over his Mercedes team-mate George Russell was reduced to 66 points as the Brit claimed victory.

The 20-year-old Italian has shown remarkable consistency to build a commanding lead at the top of the standings, but struggled in Baku after missing a significant chunk of practice due to technical issues with his car.

“I was driving a bit like my grandmother today, just damage save mode,” Antonelli said. “I didn’t take risks. Before making a move, I was making sure that I could go for it.”

Expectations were high given Antonelli had remarkably come from 19th on the grid to win his home race at Monza earlier in September, but his progress was far more steady this time around.

“If I had the same pace as at Monza or in previous races, it would have been different,” Antonelli said.

“It would have been like 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, then I didn’t have the same pace as I had previously, so the mindset changed very quickly.”

Antonelli actually dropped a place at the start, and it took him 17 laps to work his way up into the top 10.

He then benefitted from errors made by drivers ahead as he made further progress. He also survived a near-miss at the first of two rolling restarts following Safety Cars as he avoided a crash that took three cars out of the race, and was able to continue despite contact with the Haas of Oliver Bearman.

Antonelli said: “After the restart, I had big floor damage. My whole left side was gone with the contact.

“After that, the car was very sketchy to drive, and I still tried to get to P4, but all in all, it’s one of those days where you have to be happy with P5.

“Also seeing so many people doing mistakes, you kind of pull back a little bit because I just took advantage of everyone else’s mistakes and just move forward.”

‘My worst weekend of the year’

Antonelli doesn’t have to wait long to return to the track with the second of a triple-header of races coming next weekend with the Bahrain Grand Prix, which is being hosted by Malaysia amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

Russell produced his most complete weekend since the opening round of the season in Australia, taking a victory that would have been dominant without the Safety Car interruptions.

Antonelli remains a heavy favourite for the title, especially given Russell must take a grid penalty for changing his engine between now and the end of the season.

It was therefore unsurprising that the championship leader was retaining a positive outlook ahead of the next race.

“It’s exciting,” Antonelli told Sky Sports F1. “George has done an incredible weekend, he’s driven incredibly. He had a lot of confidence.

“And this weekend was my worst of the year by far in terms of performance. I wasn’t there, I wasn’t really present, especially with what happened so early on.”

Formula 1 heads to Malaysia for the first time since 2017 as it hosts the Bahrain Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit – watch live coverage from Friday morning, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime

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