(Motorsport-Total.com) – At the frustrating British Grand Prix, Andrea Kimi Antonelli showed a pronounced fighting spirit. Naomi Schiff praised the driver for this and explained that exactly this mentality is required to win a Formula 1 World Championship.
Read more Fighting spirit like a champion: Naomi Schiff praises Kimi Antonelli
Thanks to a strategy that gave him a tire advantage of ten laps, Antonelli was up to 2.5 seconds per lap faster than Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc before the incident. The Mercedes driver had the race win almost in sight before a bizarre mechanical defect ruined the potential triumph.
His comeback was stopped when a wheel cover on the front right shifted and blocked the steering mechanism. When the Mercedes pit wall then instructed the Italian driver to retire the car early, he immediately begged on the team radio to continue driving to still collect every possible point.
The right attitude
There was much applause in the paddock for Antonelli’s approach. He ultimately finished the race in 15th place, which was also influenced by a penalty for ignoring track limits.
“I think we already saw the beginning of this in Canada when he reported on the radio and really didn’t want to leave the smallest detail untried – and that is exactly the attitude you need if you want to win this World Championship,” Schiff says about Antonelli in the podcast Up To Speed.
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“He was worried about a single point. He didn’t care at all whether it was just a single point he would get. He absolutely wanted to secure it. And the Mercedes team did a fantastic job, the strategy department kept him out much longer than the others. He had a ten-lap advantage over the others and caught them one after another.”
Russell gets closer
“He was 2.5 seconds faster than Charles when he closed the gap. And then there was this extremely unfortunate situation with the wheel cover.”
Antonelli still leads the World Championship, but his teammate George Russell has reduced the gap to 25 points, as the Brit finished second at his home Grand Prix.
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