Andrea Kimi Antonelli delivered an outstanding performance at Silverstone by overtaking pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton during the Sprint race and securing his first Saturday Sprint victory in Formula 1. It was a positive result for Mercedes overall, although George Russell had to settle for fourth place after a more difficult afternoon.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli‘s impressive Sprint victory
Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord reflected on the Sprint race during his interview with F1TV, praising the young Italian driver’s performance.
“Antonelli really impressed me. It was fantastic to see him make such a strong start, probably even better than the Ferrari. Since the beginning of the season we’ve done a huge amount of work on our race starts, so congratulations to everyone back at the factory. Kimi showed extremely mature racecraft. He understood that he potentially had an advantage in terms of tyre degradation and waited for exactly the right moment to launch his attack.”
George Russell’s more difficult afternoon
Lord also discussed George Russell’s race, acknowledging that the British driver was not as comfortable with the car as his teammate.
“Finishing higher than where you started is always a positive result. It looked like he had the pace to overtake Lando because he closed the gap quite quickly towards the end of the race. He doesn’t feel completely comfortable with the car, or at least not to the same extent as the other side of the garage.”
Mercedes studies Ferrari’s energy deployment before qualifying
One of the biggest talking points ahead of qualifying is whether Mercedes can use the Parc Fermé adjustments to optimise its energy deployment strategy and match Ferrari’s performance in that area.
“There are certainly some directions we need to follow,” Lord admitted, before adding: “Yesterday we were a little disappointed after Sprint Qualifying. We lost most of our time in the slow-speed corners, and that’s an area we’ll be focusing on. But during the race we had a slight advantage. Hopefully we’ll be able to make some good changes and improve the car’s baseline setup.”
He also highlighted the importance of energy management around the Silverstone circuit: “We’re all struggling with energy management because we simply don’t have enough to distribute it across all three sectors. The challenge is figuring out the optimal deployment strategy. We now have far more information than we did yesterday.”
As the weekend progresses, the tactical battle between Mercedes and Ferrari regarding hybrid power management remains a central theme. The ability of the engineers to balance energy distribution across the unique layout of the Silverstone circuit will likely prove decisive for Sunday’s main event.
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