Kimi Antonelli sent a clear warning to George Russell by beating his British teammate and securing pole position for the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday.
Driven by his first victory in China two weeks ago, Antonelli delivered another composed performance, securing first place at Suzuka by 0.298 seconds.
Russell, who leads the championship with a four-point advantage over Antonelli, couldn’t match the pace of the young Italian during a session in which he complained about the handling of his Mercedes.
Oscar Piastri placed third for McLaren, surpassing Charles Leclerc of Ferrari.
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Lando Norris will start fifth, followed by Lewis Hamilton in sixth place, while Max Verstappen will start from a distant eleventh position. Russell started the season with a victory in Australia, but Antonelli marked his own territory by winning from pole in Shanghai. In the previous round, Russell’s hopes of getting pole position were dashed by technical problems after he stopped in Q3. However, on this occasion, he was simply outpaced by Antonelli’s pure speed.In Q1, Russell detected that something was not right with his Mercedes.“Come on, man!”, exclaimed a jubilant Antonelli over the radio.
But Russell couldn’t catch Antonelli, who secured his second pole in two weeks. Russell commented on his 19-year-old teammate: “He did a great job again. It was a really strange session. We were both very fast all weekend. I made some adjustments after this morning’s practice, and then, at the start of qualifying, I wasn’t anywhere.” “So we need to understand that because I’m very lucky to be second again. The last two weekends things have gone wrong in qualifying, but the race is tomorrow and there’s still a lot at stake.” Antonelli expressed: “I am very happy with the session. It was good, it was clean. I felt very good in the car and with each attempt I was improving and improving.”“Something doesn’t feel right,” Russell said over the radio. Later, he added: “I think we’re missing something here. We can’t be this slow. Look at everything.”
On the other hand, Verstappen’s season took another turbulent turn when he was eliminated in Q2.
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The four-time world champion, who started the week by kicking a journalist out of his press conference, stated that there was “something wrong” with his “completely unmanageable” Red Bull, finishing in 11th place. Verstappen was surpassed by his Red Bull teammate, Isack Hadjar, who failed to make it into Q3. Hadjar will start from eighth place. Ollie Bearman, who had had a good start to the season, suffered a surprising early elimination from qualifying. Bearman, fifth in the drivers’ standings, will start in 18th place, with only the Cadillac duo, Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas, and the troubled Aston Martin drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, behind him on the grid.
