Kimi Antonelli is confident Mercedes are “in the fight” at this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, following a positive opening day at the Baku City Circuit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mercedes ended second practice with George Russell in third and Antonelli in fourth, respectively. It represented a major boost after a tricky Italian GP, where the Silver Arrows found itself comfortably adrift of the leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Antonelli in particular, the young Italian entered Baku on a run of three points in six races, due to a nightmare European leg.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Based on the first day of track action in Azerbaijan, it would appear an immediate strong start to the flyaway races is on the cards for the 19-year-old.<\/p>\n
“I think it was a pretty positive day,” said Antonelli. “I was building up, taking it a bit easier today, as obviously it’s a street circuit. Just trying to build my confidence step by step.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Especially, FP2 felt pretty good. Obviously, FP1, there was the big interruption. So you kind of lose a little bit of rhythm. But in FP2 I was able to build lap by lap.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“There’s still a little bit to work to do. I think, still two, three tenths to find. But, I think it was a pretty positive day, and something we can build on tomorrow as well.”<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tAntonelli predicts tyre conundrum<\/p>\n
For this weekend, Pirelli has gone a step softer with its range of tyres compared to last season, creating an interesting storyline.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not for the first time this year, the medium compound could be the most used tyre in qualifying, with Antonelli predicting that it could have a significant appearance on Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He recognised that there remains a few tenths to find to catch Ferrari, but is aware how tricky things could become when deciding which tyre to run in qualifying.<\/p>\n
“Yeah, definitely there’s always something to find,” added Antonelli. “Ferrari looks pretty quick, but I think we can be in the fight.<\/p>\n
“And of course, McLaren, I think today didn’t really show its real pace, so I think it can be very tight tomorrow.<\/p>\n
“We’ll see also with the tyres, because it seems like the medium is the faster tyre. So it’s going to be quite tricky tomorrow, but we’ll do our best.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli is confident Mercedes are “in the fight” at this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, following a positive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-155517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}