Mercedes equalled its worst-ever lead to 350 Formulation 1 qualifying classes forward of the Belgian Grand Prix dash race, which George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli will begin from thirteenth and twentieth.
The one time the Silver Arrows ever certified so low on the grid coincidentally occurred at one other dash race, with Russell fifteenth and team-mate Lewis Hamilton down in 18th on the Pink Bull Ring in 2023.
Antonelli didn’t set a aggressive lap time in dash qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps after spinning into the gravel on the exit of Stavelot, ending up 3.6s off the tempo.
Requested if the wind was the difficulty, the Italian rookie replied: “I do not know, it was really a fairly first rate lap. I used to be round P4 and yeah, it simply was bizarre as a result of I misplaced it utterly on exit.
“I simply have to test, perhaps a gust of wind, but it surely was fairly bizarre the way in which I misplaced the automobile.
“The automobile felt good over that lap, so positively assured for tomorrow. We’ll simply attempt to reset and search for tomorrow.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Photos by way of Getty Photos
In the meantime, Russell simply made it via to SQ2 with fifth place within the first qualifying phase, however he finally couldn’t do higher than thirteenth, with a nine-tenth deficit on McLaren’s pacesetter Lando Norris within the session.
Russell lamented a “horrible” feeling from his Mercedes W16 and advised his team-mate might have unintentionally performed an element in his plight.
“We’ve had the tempo all day,” Russell insisted. “In Q1 I ran over all that gravel, when Kimi went off; for the remainder of that lap it felt horrible, the lap after it felt horrible, after which my lap in Q2 felt horrible.
“We noticed some injury on the automobile; we have to see if that is the explanation, as a result of clearly it is a large shock to be out in Q2 and clearly the hole was so large. I am certain that should be an element.”
With solely the highest eight finishers scoring factors within the dash, Russell might want to discover a option to acquire the higher hand on 5 of his fellow rivals to be rewarded within the standings. He was optimistic that he may “make some progress tomorrow” however stopped wanting expressing extra bullish targets.
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