Why the F1 Dutch GP weekend has been a "wake-up call" for Kimi Antonelli
· Yahoo Sports
Kimi Antonelli's face after qualifying third for Sunday's final Dutch Grand Prix said it all: another opportunity had slipped away.
It has been a less than optimal weekend for the championship leader after an off-track excursion in sprint qualifying damaged his car, ultimately consigning him to fourth in that race. He then felt he should have been on pole position for Sunday's main points-paying race, but didn't push hard enough at the beginning of his final qualifying lap.
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"I think this weekend has been a great wake-up call after the summer break, that you can never let your guard down," he said after qualifying.
"So, it was a good wake-up call, especially looking ahead to the next ones [races]."
Zandvoort's narrow, undulating layout with a mix of cambered corners militates against overtaking so qualifying is especially important at this venue. In the first segment of sprint qualifying Antonelli pushed too hard at the entry to Kumhobocht, the penultimate corner, and ran wide over the gravel.
That damaged the underfloor of his car and cost an estimated 25 points of downforce. He then had to live with the consequences throughout the rest of the session because changing an entire floor is a time-consuming job.
Antonelli therefore did well to qualify fifth for the sprint, then passed Oscar Piastri's McLaren for fourth place. But he was unable to make further progress despite Piastri's team-mate Lando Norris suffering with rear-tyre degradation and dropping back from second to third late on.
Final qualifying for the grand prix was then defined by rain. Heavy showers earlier in the day had cleaned the track surface, dictating that laptimes would get much quicker over the course of qualifying as more rubber was laid down. The expectation of more rain then influenced the teams' approaches to final qualifying.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, MercedesUsually, the track is at its fastest at the very end of the qualifying hour. But with rain forecast five minutes before the end, most teams sent their drivers out early for their final runs.
Since Zandvoort's layout puts more energy through the tyres on the left-hand side of the car, most drivers found they had to build an extra tyre-preparation lap into their runs to bring both sides up to operating temperature. Even then it was possible to arrive at the first corner on the push lap with them not quite in the right place.
Given the onset of rain in the final qualifying segment, only Ferrari stuck to this approach while the other teams directed their drivers to take the conventional approach of doing just one lap before starting to push.
"I was struggling with the balance, to be fair, throughout the whole session," said Antonelli.
"Mainly Sector 3, I was struggling in the chicane. And then just made a couple of changes and the feeling came back.
"But obviously, in the last lap I did a mistake in Sector 1. I took it a bit too easy seeing the rain on the visor and just, yeah, was a really poor Sector 1. And shame because I think we had a shot for pole."
Zandvoort's first corner is challenging in that it dips down on the approach, making it more difficult to judge the braking, but the corner itself is then cambered in the driver's favour. During qualifying on Saturday the process of judging brake effort was complicated further by uncertain tyre temperatures, the increasingly damp track surface, and a gusting headwind.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, MercedesComparing the telemetry data indicates Antonelli lifted off the throttle and braked slightly earlier for the corner than McLaren's Norris, who ultimately took pole position. Antonelli was also very early to release the brakes, suggesting he knew at this point that he had misjudged it.
Norris also lost some time in Turn 1 compared with Antonelli's teammate George Russell, who went on to qualify second. But while Norris recouped more time elsewhere on the lap to overturn Russell's advantage, Antonelli pushed too hard into Turn 3 and ran slightly wide, blunting his chances of making up time elsewhere on the lap.
He fell 0.133s short of Norris and will start third on the grid.
"In FP1 I felt very good," Antonelli said of his weekend. "Then obviously yesterday in [sprint] quali I did a mistake, and that definitely took some confidence away.
"Also, today in qualifying, mainly because the feeling was not really there with the car, I still struggled to find my rhythm and to put the lap times together. But luckily in Q3 we were able to put things a bit more together and to be on the second row."
Antonelli leads the drivers' championship on 224 points, with Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton second on 171. He will be mindful of the fact that at this point last year Piastri led the standings with 309 points to Norris's 275, with Max Verstappen third on 205. Piastri didn't win another GP and went on to finish third.
Read Also: Kimi Antonelli: F1 Dutch GP sprint qualifying off cost "25 points of downforce" Why Lando Norris was “surprised” to claim Dutch GP pole positionTo read more Motorsport.com articles visit our website.