MADRID — Kimi Antonelli met with reporters Thursday at the Madring, four days after he won the Italian Grand Prix from 19th on the grid.
A power unit penalty had pushed the Mercedes driver toward the back of the field at Monza. Antonelli beat teammate George Russell anyway, passing him in the closing laps to become the first Italian to win his country’s Grand Prix since Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966.
Right after the race, Antonelli had described the comeback as “absolutely incredible.”
On Thursday, during media sessions ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix, Antonelli was asked about the victory.
“Definitely so far the best day of my life, and an incredible memory,” Antonelli said. “Wish (I had) a bit more time to realize and enjoy it, but now obviously we are in Madrid and we are ready to do our best and we’ll try to repeat.”
The victory was Antonelli’s seventh of the season and pushed his lead over Russell to 66 points. Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton sits another 10 points back in third, and 10 races remain on the schedule, beginning with Sunday’s race at the new Madring circuit.
How Kimi Antonelli Won From 19th At Monza
Early in the race at Monza, Charles Leclerc crashed at the final corner and brought out a red flag, and Antonelli had already climbed to 12th by the time the field lined up for the restart.
From there, the Mercedes driver kept moving forward, and the two Mercedes cars and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen broke away from the rest of the field while exchanging the lead several times in the first half of the race. A Virtual Safety Car in the middle of the race shaped the finish, with Antonelli pitting under the caution for fresh medium tires while Russell stayed out on a used set of hards.
Over the final stint, Antonelli chased down his teammate on the newer tires. He survived a trip through the gravel while attacking Russell late in the race and completed the pass in the closing laps.
Russell finished second, and Verstappen took third. Antonelli’s win from 19th is the second-lowest starting position for a winner in F1 history, behind John Watson’s victory from 22nd at Long Beach in 1983.
George Russell, Kimi Antonelli Size Up The Madring
Russell, whose most recent win came at the Austrian Grand Prix in June, spoke Thursday in Madrid about a circuit that has never hosted an F1 race.
“It seems a wild track to be fair. It’s mental but excited to experience it. Going to be a real challenge and I think qualifying is going to be important,” Russell said.
“The level of everyone in F1 is exceptionally high,” Russell said. “It’s going to be a circuit where you need confidence.”
Antonelli compared the Madring to Jeddah on Thursday. The walls in Madrid, he said, sit even closer than they do on the Saudi Arabian street circuit, leaving “even less margin for error.”
Antonelli also brought up the curbs and the range of braking zones, along with a lap that mixes slow corners and fast ones. The Mercedes will need to work in a lot of different conditions to handle all of it, he said.
Other than Ferrari, which ran Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton at the circuit during a filming day earlier this summer, no team had put an F1 car on the Madring before this weekend. Mercedes did its preparation on the simulator.
After its one-two finish at Monza, Mercedes also holds a 122-point lead over Ferrari in the constructors’ standings.
F2 and F3 cars went out first Friday morning. F1’s opening practice started at 1:30 p.m. local time, and the second session was set for 5 p.m.
Saturday brings final practice and qualifying. Lights out for the 57-lap race is 3 p.m. local time Sunday, or 8 a.m. CT.
