If Kimi Antonelli’s sensational Monza comeback win was a drive for the ages, then his much more subdued encore in the streets of Baku was just a footnote in his fledgling career.
After tagging the wall in qualifying, Antonelli was facing his second comeback race in three weekends from 16th on the grid. But while the 6km Baku City Circuit certainly offered more passing opportunities than F1’s previous stop in Madrid, Antonelli was aware a repeat of his Monza heroics was always going to be a tall order at best, and an impossible goal at worst.
On the tricky and windy street circuit, which was laced with pitfalls, Antonelli employed a cautious approach as he gradually picked off midfielders to move up to eighth by the time Alex Albon caused a safety car on lap 31 of 51.
Having already benefitted from Lando Norris’ off in Turn 1, the neutralisation gave Antonelli’s recovery drive another much-needed shot in the arm as it brought the field together, and the 20-year-old received further assistance when Franco Colapinto took out Norris and team-mate Pierre Gasly and the Mercedes driver somehow managed to escape the carnage.
That opened the door for a challenge on Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton as Antonelli crossed the line in fifth, completing a successful round of damage limitation after a tricky weekend.
Afterwards, Antonelli conceded he was driving like his Italian ‘nonna’ as he tried to reduce the points loss to winning team-mate George Russell.
“I was driving a bit like my grandmother today, just damage save mode,” Antonelli explained. “You know, I just didn’t take a risk. Before making a move, I was making sure that I could go for it.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Carlos Sainz, Williams
Photo by: Alex Pantling / LAT Images via Getty Images
While Antonelli did manage to avoid Colapinto’s melee at the restart, he was swiped by Haas driver Oliver Bearman which caused damage to the left-hand side floor edge.
“After the restart, I had big floor damage,” Antonelli detailed. “My whole left side was gone with the contact. So after that, the car was very sketchy to drive. I still tried to get to fourth, but all in all, it’s one of those days where you have to be happy with fifth.
“I saw the Alpine locking up and I pulled back immediately. I was getting ready to do the switchback, but then obviously I didn’t see Ollie coming so quickly on the inside. I was lucky to get away with it, but not so lucky to come away with such a big [amount of] damage.”
Following a disrupted weekend with a hydraulic leak in practice and a crash in qualifying, Antonelli was left disappointed with his own performance. It’s that lack of pace and rhythm that instructed his more cautious approach to the race.
“If I had the same pace as at Monza or in previous races, it would have been different,” he 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 making mistakes, you kind of pull back a little bit. Because today I just took advantage of everyone else’s mistakes and just moved forward.”
Having limited his points loss to Russell to 15 points courtesy of his recovery to fifth, Antonelli leaves Baku with a healthy 66-point lead in the standings as F1 heads to Malaysia.
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