As cool as Italian ice cream, Kimi Antonelli clinched his sixth Grand Prix victory in Belgium. In the battle within the team, he has now pulled 50 points clear of his Mercedes team-mate George Russell, with the scores standing at 204:154. In between them lies Ferrari star Lewis Hamilton, who had pushed Russell off the track shortly after the start (and received a penalty for doing so).<\/p>\n
For the first time since Monaco, the astonishing Kimi has won again; after that, things went a bit wrong for the teenager: an electrical fault in Spain, third place in Austria, a mechanical failure in England (an aerodynamic part had become lodged in the suspension), and now his sixth victory of the season.<\/p>\n
The Bolognese driver knows: \u201cThe last few races have shown how quickly things can go wrong, so I don\u2019t want to think about the title at all at the moment. I\u2019d much rather try to secure a top result in every race; the rest will take care of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kimi on the frantic opening stages of the Grand Prix: \u201cThat was absolutely mad! To be honest, I was so confused by what was happening, because Max just flew past me before Eau Rouge, and then I overtook him again. Then I saw Charles almost right next to me, and I thought to myself: \u201cWhat on earth is going on here?\u201d I had no idea. In those moments, I was just trying to hold my position, but I was looking in the mirror the whole time because I could see so many cars coming up behind me. It really was a mad start.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later on, the virtual safety car (VSC) phase didn\u2019t play in Kimi\u2019s favour, but Antonelli is quite pragmatic about it: \u201cOf course I was a bit annoyed, but you just can\u2019t predict things like that. Sometimes it goes to plan and in your favour, sometimes it doesn\u2019t and it works against you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Suzuka I was very lucky with the timing of the safety car, and today luck wasn\u2019t on my side in that situation. But that\u2019s just how it is, and that\u2019s why you try to make the best of it despite everything and always maximise the result.\u201d<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s be honest: was Kimi surprised that Charles Leclerc was sticking to him like glue after Antonelli had overtaken him? Kimi replies: \u201cWell, they\u2019d already been quick in practice. Their stints didn\u2019t look bad, so we knew they\u2019d be strong in the race.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cToday confirmed that they can compete at the front, and they were particularly strong compared to us through turns 12 and 13. We struggled a bit there with a twitchy rear end; the Ferrari was better in that respect, but we were stronger in the slow corners. But we definitely expected them to be quick today.\u201d<\/p>\n
And now on to the Hungaroring. What does Kimi expect there? \u201cI reckon the top four teams will be very close together because you won\u2019t have any problems fully charging the battery there. So it\u2019ll be another track like Monaco, where you just focus on driving as fast as possible \u2013 without worrying too much about energy management. That\u2019ll be interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a 50-point lead over George Russell, can Kimi afford to relax a little? Antonelli replies straight away: \u201cNo, because you never know what might happen \u2013 the races in Barcelona and Silverstone have shown that clearly enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t be changing my approach. I take each weekend as it comes and try to get the best possible result every time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m staying on my guard \u2013 with these cars, so many unpredictable things can happen. That\u2019s why I don\u2019t want to think too far ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As cool as Italian ice cream, Kimi Antonelli clinched his sixth Grand Prix victory in Belgium. In the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":812799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-812798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}