Kimi Antonelli is aiming to finish the Sao Paulo Grand Prix weekend \u201con a high\u201d after taking P2 on the grid in Qualifying, meaning that he will again line up alongside polesitter Lando Norris as he did for Saturday\u2019s Sprint.<\/p>\n
A few hours on from converting that previous starting position into a second-place result in the Sprint<\/a>, Antonelli<\/a> continued his good form into Qualifying<\/a>, with his final lap in Q2 putting him just 0.174s adrift of Norris<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reflecting on his session \u2013 and the fact that he has been making a habit of claiming P2 during the weekend \u2013 Antonelli smiled: \u201cYeah, I mean a bit annoying that we\u2019re P2 again! But still a good result, a very difficult session today.<\/p>\n \u201cThe wind was very difficult to understand because also it was a bit gusty sometimes, so you were going into a corner with a bit of unknown, uncertainty, but I think overall we did a good session.<\/p>\n \u201cThe last lap was not amazing, but everyone makes little mistakes and it was still enough for P2, so tomorrow we have a lot to play for.\u201d<\/p>\n When it was put to Antonelli that he has appeared comfortable with the W16 right from the start of the weekend at Interlagos, the Mercedes<\/a> driver responded: \u201cYeah, definitely, I\u2019ve been comfortable with the car. I felt good out there.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been enjoying a lot driving around this track, definitely also the crowd has given me some extra motivation, some extra energy, so I\u2019m really looking forward to tomorrow and hopefully we can finish the weekend on a high.\u201d<\/p>\n On the other side of the garage, it was not an entirely straightforward session for Antonelli\u2019s team mate George Russell<\/a>, who was heard reporting struggles with grip and ultimately ended Qualifying in P6.<\/p>\n Giving a further insight into those issues after jumping out of the car, Russell explained: \u201cI just had no grip, to be honest. It was obviously a very strange session when you look at the order, with Max [Verstappen]<\/a> out in Q1, [Ollie] Bearman<\/a> top three the whole session, and I was kind of in that camp of not being able to get the tyres working.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it wasn\u2019t very pleasant, but P6 is definitely damage limitation considering how bad it felt.\u201d<\/p>\n In terms of what might be possible in Sunday\u2019s race \u2013 in which he will line up behind Racing Bulls<\/a>\u2019 Isack Hadjar<\/a> \u2013 the Briton does not see himself reaching the rostrum.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d like to think I can move forward, but obviously the cars ahead are still quick,\u201d Russell conceded. \u201cWe\u2019ve got one of the Racing Bulls ahead of us which I hope to try and get past, but I think it will be difficult to get on the podium tomorrow for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli is aiming to finish the Sao Paulo Grand Prix weekend \u201con a high\u201d after taking P2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-272724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272724","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=272724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}