Kimi Antonelli triumphs for the second time in a row, just two weeks after his maiden F1 win in China, and takes the championship lead ahead of George Russell.
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| Photo by Mark Sutton |
After some time, he managed to get ahead of Hamilton and Norris, but then Ollie Bearman had a heavy crash in Spoon Corner, which brought out the safety car. Kimi immediately took advantage of this and went into the pits. Thanks to that, he regained the lead of the race and controlled it comfortably until the finish. This win means he now leads the championship by 9 points ahead of his teammate George Russell.
"It feels pretty good! Of course, it's too early to think about the title, but we're on the right track," Antonelli said in a TV interview.
"I had a terrible start. I have to see what happened. Then I was lucky with the safety car to get the lead — the pace afterwards was incredible. In the second stint I felt very good in the car, I'm happy about that."
George Russell was very frustrated after the race. He suffered due to poorly timed safety car periods and commented that “everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.” Like Antonelli, he had a bad start and lost several positions, but fought his way back and even attempted to overtake Piastri for the lead. This didn’t work out, and he went into the pits. After he rejoined the track, the safety car was deployed due to Bearman’s crash. It is clear that the timing of his pit stop was very unfortunate and likely cost him a better result. In the end, he crossed the finish line in fourth place.
Ferrari struggled with car setup throughout the weekend and were a bit off the pace compared to Mercedes, especially compared to previous rounds. However, Leclerc still managed to secure a podium with a third-place finish. Hamilton stayed out longer and benefited from the safety car, just like Antonelli, although he lacked pace in the second stint and finished sixth.
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, McLaren bounced back this weekend compared to China, where neither of their cars started the race. For Oscar Piastri, this was even his first completed race of the season, as he crashed in Australia before the race and was unable to start in China due to technical issues. He delivered a fantastic second-place finish, and it must be said that he looked slightly faster than Lando Norris throughout the weekend.
As has often been the case this season, Max Verstappen struggled with his car all weekend and could only manage eighth place. However, after the race, an interesting piece of information emerged. According to Dutch journalist Erik van Haren from De Telegraaf, who is known to be close to Verstappen, Max is seriously considering leaving Formula 1 at the end of this season.
Formula 1 now faces a five-week break, as the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix have been cancelled due to the Middle East conflict. This means the next race will take place in Miami on May 1–3.
