Andrea Kimi Antonelli took to the track for the first two practice sessions of the Australian Grand Prix.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli ended his first day of a Formula 1 weekend in 16th position in the second practice session. The Italian Mercedes driver was unable to complete a good qualifying simulation, but his race pace, run on the harder tires, seemed quite solid.
At the end of Friday in Melbourne, Antonelli shared his first impressions. Here are the statements from the driver from Bologna: “It’s been a positive first day of the season, and overall, I’m happy with how it went. Lap after lap, I’m gaining more and more confidence and continuing to improve my learning. The long run in FP2 was positive and gives us a good base for the rest of the weekend. On the single lap, we still have work to do to find more performance, mainly related to finding the correct tire window, which is something we will focus on overnight. We’ve gathered a lot of data to work with to be ready for Saturday.”.
Kimi then added: “It’s still early to make predictions about our relative performance. We don’t know exactly what other teams are doing, and today the tire strategies were different. The car felt good, and we’ll see what we can do in qualifying tomorrow.”
Photo: X Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 Team