Kimi Antonelli left the Marina Bay Circuit with another podium finish and a 102-point lead over team-mate George Russell. He is indeed in control of the drivers’ championship with another great race under his belt. But he almost left the track after putting his Mercedes into a barrier because the brake pedal started misbehaving.
The third-place finish behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc hid a surprisingly fraught drive.
Heat, dirty air and a sensor issue
Antonelli’s race started with an issue before the lights even turned off as the team found a brake sensor fault while the car was sat on the grid. The fix was carried out there and then, but the team had to run his car without any brake data.
More issues came during the race when the young Italian complained of having no stopping power. During the press conference following his Singapore campaign, he answered questions of how he drove around the issue.
“Well, just trying to lift and coast before every braking and to arrive a bit slower and put less pressure on the pedal,” he said. “Because especially on the restart of the VSC, when I went to brake, nothing happened. I had really poor stopping, brake power and I almost went into the wall.
“So, it was just very tricky out there, and also the pedal was very long. But it was also kind of expected. You know, I’ve run three-quarters of the race behind a car in dirty air and obviously being so hot.
“Plus, we also had the sensor issue on the brakes, so we didn’t even have the data about the brakes. We didn’t know exactly what temperature they were running, so it was all about feeling. But they were hot because I could even smell it, so it was not very pleasant.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Clive Mason / Getty Images
The new package still has a narrow operating window
The title leader was also asked about the upgrade package he ran on the Mercedes for the second time after the car failed to deliver in Malaysia.
“I think on this track, not yet,” Antonelli admitted. “On this track, where you have a lot of slow speed, still not quite there in terms of performance. It’s just because with the old package, you know exactly where to put the car, which window, and the car works very nicely.
“With this new package, we see the potential, the performance that it can bring, and I do feel it in certain corners. But the window is just too small of where the car operates at this moment. So also in driving, it’s very sensitive to any differences that you do in the way you approach a corner or how you attack braking.
“So, I feel like, yes, the package is going to be faster and it’s going to be, yeah, I think it can be a good step forward once we understand how to use the full potential.”
Austin will be the Brackley outfit’s next opportunity.
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