After winning the sprint race, Kimi Antonelli continued his Saturday at the British Grand Prix in the best possible way, securing another pole position despite a disappointing start to his flying lap.
Let’s dive into the telemetry data and see what changes the Mercedes driver made from sprint qualifying to stay ahead of Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.
How Kimi Antonelli beat Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to win pole position
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This time, Antonelli’s main rivals were the Ferrari drivers, given that his teammate George Russell was not having the cleanest weekend.
Russell was the slower player in the garage all weekend and after a brief win over Kimi in Austria the momentum was back to where it had been since the start of the season.
On the other hand, somewhat unexpectedly we saw a very fast Ferrari.
Difficulties with top straight line speeds still exist, but they seem to be significantly reduced now. The new powertrain appears to perform better at lower altitudes in the UK.
However, if we look at the telemetry data, we see that this small deficit on the straights is just enough to keep Mercedes at the top.
After an initial advantage of just under 0.1 seconds, which Antonelli gains thanks to his higher top speed through Turn 1, the Ferrari finds itself significantly faster through Turns 3 and 4.
During these corners, Mercedes collects and recharges the battery for use in the second part of the lap.
Only in this section do both Hamilton and Leclerc manage to win back about two tenths and take the lead in the fight for pole.
In the case of Leclerc, this advantage remained on his side until he entered the third sector of the track.
We have a very similar situation in Brooklands and Luffield; In the graph we see how the delta line here again crosses the side of the Ferrari drivers, and at the moment when they enter the straight, it turns back towards Kimi.
The high-speed section of the circuit from Woodcote to Vale is one area where the Ferrari simply cannot match the Mercedes.
In sprint qualifying we saw that Hamilton was faster thanks to Cops, and that is still the case, except the difference is much smaller – almost imperceptible – and does not provide a real advantage, unlike the previous day.
An interesting detail: during the SQ Mercedes didn’t use 8th gear at all, whereas now Antonelli only used it on the Woodcote to Copse straight (and only in Q3, which confirms Mercedes is saving its most aggressive strategy for the very end).
It looks like the team made this change after analyzing the data, which certainly made a positive difference.
Already approaching Vail, Hamilton was 0.340 seconds behind and Leclerc 0.260 seconds behind, far enough to eliminate any chance of a spin.
Through the Club we were again able to see different deployment strategies: the Ferrari drivers showed significantly higher speeds at the apex, but Antonelli very easily compensated for all this with incredible acceleration out of the corner.
Leclerc ended up qualifying in second place, 0.175 seconds behind, with Hamilton 0.347 seconds behind, certainly significantly more than expected.
Can Ferrari make the most of it?
From the point of view of the positions gained, absolutely yes.
Getting ahead of one of the Mercedes cars is a good result and gives them more freedom when it comes to team strategy for the main race.
However, in terms of lap times, the telemetry data shows that Hamilton could have done better.
After a fantastic lap in sprint qualifying, the seven-time world champion drove below his capabilities.
Namely, Hamilton is the driver with the largest gap between actual and perfect lap of any driver entering Q3.
If we combine his best sectors for the session, we get a lap that is 0.174 seconds faster than his actual lap, which puts him in second place.
This deficit was mainly in the middle and final sectors, where the British had the most room for improvement.
Although this lap would not have allowed him to take pole position, it would have given him an advantage over his teammate.
Hamilton told PlanetF1.com and other media at a post-race press conference that he was clipped by “deployment issues” on his car, which were resolved by the final runs of Q3. He also mentioned the inadequacy of the SF-26’s brakes.
What can we expect from Ferrari in the main race?
The sprint saw Ferrari about 1.5 tenths behind Mercedes on race pace, still a big enough gap to overcome.
What currently appears to be a realistic battle is happening with Russell, where Ferrari can use a clever strategy to exploit the fact that both of their cars are close to each other, thereby maintaining their position relative to the Mercedes.
From a team point of view, it is very important that Hamilton and Leclerc do not waste time fighting each other.
But given everything we’ve seen this season, it’s likely we’ll see racing between the two of them, which brings extra excitement ahead of the main race at Silverstone.
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