Kimi Antonelli admits ‘really stupid’ Suzuka start error before fighting back to win

Kimi Antonelli opened up on the “really stupid thing” he did with the clutch at the Japanese Grand Prix start, which caused him to sink back through the pack.

Antonelli got his finger placement all wrong, and dropped from pole to sixth. But, with a helping hand from the Safety Car, Antonelli fought back to make it back-to-back grand prix wins. He displaced Mercedes teammate George Russell at the top of the Drivers’ Championship. Even without a Safety Car, Antonelli does not think the win would have been impossible.

Kimi Antonelli Suzuka start error explained

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Antonelli picked up his first grand prix win in China, and at Suzuka, appeared to take another step.

While Russell was placed on the back foot at the Chinese Grand Prix after his Q3 reliability troubles, Antonelli had the upper hand on Russell in Suzuka.

Antonelli headed a Mercedes front-row lockout, though neither driver made things easy for themselves with a poor start. Antonelli dropped from pole to sixth, and Russell, second to fourth.

Russell crossed the line fourth, while Antonelli battled back to become a two-time Grand Prix winner, helped by the convenient Safety Car timing, after Oliver Bearman crashed out at Spoon.

“Of course, I’m going to enjoy the moment, because it’s great to get back-to-back wins,” Antonelli told Channel 4.

“I think I’m happy with how I felt in the car this weekend. How I built my weekend. I had an awesome qualifying.

“Of course, today, the start was very annoying. I was very, very mad.”

Antonelli was asked to explain what had gone wrong.

“It was a really stupid thing, little thing. I didn’t insert well enough the fingers into the clutch, and that led to the fact that when I dropped it, I didn’t have the same angle as well, and I just dropped more than what I should have.”

Further discussing his tricky start in the post-race press conference, Antonelli added: “It’s an area where I need to work a lot, because it’s definitely not good enough and I’m just making my life a lot harder.

“So, definitely a lot of work to do still.”

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The picture at the front was altered drastically by the Safety Car. Russell had worked his way back up to second, and had been applying pressure on race leader Oscar Piastri, ahead of the latter’s pit-stop.

As Russell boxed, the Safety Car appeared soon after. Antonelli was then able to pit with the race neutralised, and return to the track still in the lead.

Antonelli was asked whether he still thought that a victory was possible immediately following his poor race start.

“Probably,” he said.

“I think it was a bit difficult to get by when I was behind Charles [Leclerc] because we obviously had two completely different deployments, and it was just hard to find the right place to overtake.

“Then he went back in the pit and then we improved a lot with the pace.

“And then obviously I was lucky with the Safety Car. But without the Safety Car, I don’t know how the outcome would have been. Definitely would have been a lot more difficult, but you never know.”

Antonelli became Formula 1’s youngest-ever Drivers’ Championship leader after his Suzuka win, which puts him nine points ahead of Russell.

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