‘Confidence is high’ – Antonelli energised by ‘very enjoyable’ P2 end in Sao Paulo Sprint

Kimi Antonelli has admitted that “confidence is high” at Mercedes regardless of the aggressive nature of the sector, after he was in a position to problem Lando Norris throughout the Sprint at Interlagos and safe a P2 end.

The 19-year-old missed out on pole place by simply 0.097s to the lead McLaren, and after a shaky begin to the Sprint he was in a position to settle into second place across the damp circuit.

Following a pink flag interlude, Antonelli got here below strain from his group mate George Russell, however the lack of dry patches away from the racing line aided him in defending his place, and he set his sights on a struggling Norris.

With the McLaren on outdated delicate tyres, Antonelli was in a position to get inside DRS vary of the Sprint chief for the ultimate 5 laps, and though he couldn’t discover a well beyond, he crossed the road lower than a second behind Norris.

“It was a very fun race,” he stated. “There have been very difficult situations, particularly firstly. We tried to maintain the strain on Lando and simply got here brief however tyre degradation was fairly massive and wind was choosing up throughout the race so it was a battle.

“The confidence is high but the field is so tight. At the end yesterday, it was really hard to put a lap together and I believe everyone made a few little mistakes so we’ll see today what we can do. Hopefully we can achieve the same result or even better.”

It was an encouraging end result for Mercedes as an entire, with Russell following carefully behind in third place to place them on the entrance foot forward of an unpredictable Qualifying hour.

The Briton defined: “It was a great race for us each – Kimi did an incredible job and clearly put Lando below a little bit of strain. P2, P3 was a extremely good end result however we have to try to do the identical once more this afternoon.

“Qualifying is so tight. It’s very difficult to overtake at the moment so that’s going to be key.”

Questioned on whether or not the relative lack of rainfall had helped the group take extra classes into the remainder of the weekend, Russell replied: “No, it’s so totally different once you’re doing Qualifying laps versus the consecutive laps. There was plenty of tyre degradation there so on the finish it was a bit troublesome and I feel Lando was struggling.

“We feel good. The temperatures are cool and we know that’s how we like it so let’s see what we can do later.”