How Antonelli is proving unbeatable, even when he's beaten

If last weekend's Italian Grand Prix felt like a Formula 1 title-defining point, one of those occasions where momentum shifted to the eventual winner, the Spanish Grand Prix will act as a fulcrum of debate for those who choose to believe or disbelieve in the principle of momentum in sport. At Monza, Kimi Antonelli "walked on water" in team boss Toto Wolff's words; in Madrid he was in the right place at the right time to benefit from circumstance. And yet, still the result felt essentially right.

After much hype, the Madring proved to be a less than optimal venue for racing and the built environment bore a discombobulating resemblance to the unmissed Sochi track. Here, though, life away from the circuit was far more convivial.

Through practice and qualifying, Mercedes seemed to have an edge, particularly on race pace, but Lando Norris strung together one of his mega-laps to beat championship leader Antonelli to pole by 0.011s. Max Verstappen also executed masterfully to wrangle third on the grid ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who had set the pace in the first Q3 runs. George Russell was quicker than team-mate Antonelli in Q1, but in the decisive phase of qualifying came up three tenths short – only good enough for P6 behind Charles Leclerc.

The question of whether Antonelli should hand the lead back to Norris, having taken it by short-cutting the first chicane, was rendered moot

The start and opening lap was always going to be tightly contested, given the absence of overtaking opportunities on a track apparently designed by individuals with no grasp of racing car dynamics. Tyre choice added another dose of spice: as the blankets came off, we divined the front-row starters to be on the disliked C3 medium compound that had proved graining-prone, with the denizens of the second row on softs – scrubbed ones for Verstappen at that. Leclerc, Russell, Oscar Piastri and Liam Lawson on hards. So, only Norris and Antonelli following the template for the medium-hard strategy Pirelli believed to be optimal.

Those simulations, of course, were based on theoretical pace and degradation alone. Whereas, based on experience of prolonged running on this track, some sort of safety car intervention was deemed inevitable. As it happened, there would be just one VSC deployment, but it would be crucial.

Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

Away from the line, therefore, Norris and Antonelli were looking at each other – Norris diving over from the right of the track to cut his rival off as the Mercedes jinked left – but the real threat came from row two. Hamilton and Verstappen both aimed for the centreline of the track from their initial launch, and it was Max who blinked first and steered right as Hamilton got his nose ahead.

But Lewis then got a bit too bold, trying to stuff his Ferrari up the inside line on Norris into Turn 1. The world champion was clearly focusing on Antonelli on his right, so Lewis saw the gap closing and wisely checked up. Norris was robust enough in asserting his right to the line that Antonelli had to take to the run off – later to complain that he'd been pushed off.

Race control made it clear to the Red Bull pitwall that Verstappen had to relinquish track position to Hamilton

In their wake, Verstappen tried to take advantage of Hamilton's loss of momentum to send it around the outside, only for Lewis to stake his claim to the racing line. Max also took to the run-off and emerged ahead.

Behind, Piastri went right with a view to passing Russell, only for the Mercedes to veer into his path. Oscar couldn't move any further right, owing to the immovable presence of the pitwall, so he lost a chunk of front wing endplate, then accidentally tapped Russell's rear tyres in the concertina effect into Turn 1.

The question of whether Antonelli should hand the lead back to Norris, having taken it by short-cutting the first chicane, was rendered moot by him overshooting the second as Norris tried to send it up the inside, so he was rapidly instructed by the Mercedes pitwall to hand it back. But Verstappen's presence in P3 made that problematic – and, indeed, while letting Norris by into Turn 8, Antonelli left enough space for Verstappen to seize the moment and grab P2.

Antonelli clearly had his water-walking footwear on, for his error would subsequently be excused. Race control made it clear to the Red Bull pitwall that Verstappen had to relinquish track position to Hamilton, having gained it by leaving the track at Turn 1. Naturally, Max railed against this vociferously but he has been here before, most notably in Jeddah, so on the fourth lap he slowed down at the exit of La Monumental, the Madring's signature banked corner. The pain here was all the greater, for not only did Max have to let Antonelli by before Hamilton, the Ferrari was beginning to suffer the onset of the brake failure that would eliminate Lewis from the race.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

Still, Max ameliorated the loss as best he could, preventing Leclerc from following Hamilton through and then pouncing on the ailing Ferrari to reassert himself in third place.

Given the absurdly long pitlane here, combined with the passing-unfriendly layout, it was expected that teams would look to minimise pitstops here despite the high stresses this track puts through the tyres. Pirelli's pre-race prognostications – often proved to be works of speculative fiction – suggested a pit window of laps 18 to 24 for those running on the ‘optimal' medium-hard strategy; a one-stop soft-hard was believed to be third fastest, with an earlier pitstop window of laps 9 to 15.

Once the brouhaha of the opening laps proceeded without the expected incidents, then, this settled down into a tyre-management exercise – albeit one in which Norris set an impressive pace, opening a gap of 5.5s to Antonelli as the lap count entered double figures, with Verstappen clinging on a similar margin behind.

The Italian Grand Prix hinged on a virtual safety car period triggered by Lance Stroll's Aston Martin suffering a hydraulic failure. In Madrid, the hand of fate would likewise be wearing green gloves: on lap 14 Stroll's brakes failed as he tried to arrest the hopeless AMR26 into Turn 20. He was unable to extricate himself or guide the car behind the barrier, causing the yellow flags to be upgraded to a VSC 37s later.

By that point, Norris was already past the pit entry, enabling Antonelli and Verstappen to make cheap pitstops while Lando had to complete at least another lap. It was a little bit early for Antonelli, on the cusp of being too late for Verstappen. Behind, Russell also pitted – but, since he had started on hards, this put him on the unfavoured mediums, consigning him to a two-stopper.

"This time around, running second on the road gave us the advantage. I feel somewhere we deserved it. There were so many VSCs and safety cars that went against us this year"
Toto Wolff

Earlier in the weekend it had been demonstrably difficult to get stranded cars off track promptly, so McLaren could have expected the VSC to last longer, Instead, the signal that it was ending came as Norris arrived at Turn 20. The track went green as he passed the scene, and the cost of the resulting pitstop was compounded by the front-right wheel gun not biting at the first time of asking.

Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, Lando Norris, McLaren

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

Norris was stationary for a frustrating seven seconds but would have emerged behind Russell anyway – just now the gap was over six seconds for him to make up. The world champion chipped away at the gap until he reached the one-second point on lap 26, then was spared having to make an on-track pass when Russell made his second stop at the end of lap 28. Still, Lando was over 12s behind Antonelli so his chances of winning had gone, barring further incident.

"Sometimes you have these calls where it's not 100% clear," said Mercedes boss Toto Wolff after the race.

"With Kimi, I'm really happy about the operation because the moment from, 'Let's do this, let's pit' to go to Bono [race engineer Peter Bonnington] and then into Kimi's ear, that was maybe three seconds. And that was very positive.

"This time around, running second on the road gave us the advantage. I feel somewhere we deserved it. There were so many VSCs and safety cars that went against us this year. So it's the first time that it worked for us."

"We considered staying out," said McLaren team principal Andrea Stella.

"But you have to you have to accept the fact that now you are on relatively used medium tyres and the people behind you will be on new hards. You're never going to open a gap on people on a new hard, therefore we kind of needed to accept that that was what we should have done.

"Sometimes we talk about being unlucky – I think at times being unlucky is used for too many applications – but in this case it's almost a mathematical definition of being unlucky. So we are happy that what we could control was good, and we take on the chin that what we could not control just played against us.

"But in fairness and for completeness we had a seven-second pitstop so there's definitely takeaways when it comes to our operations. It would have not made a difference for the final result because probably Lando would have come out anyhow behind Russell and even if not, it would have not been possible to overtake Verstappen and Antonelli.

"So definitely we take note that there's a lot of work to do in our operation and it's not the first time that we have a slow stop – but in terms of the race itself, it didn't make a difference."

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

Leclerc, having not stopped under the VSC, therefore led until the final laps as the Ferrari pitwall prayed for another on-track incident. Given how close Antonelli, Verstappen and Norris came to one another in his wake, Leclerc might even have been the instigator of one. But at last Ferrari realised it was on a hiding to nothing and, as Russell began upping the pace, it realised fourth place was the best option left on the table and took it, bringing Charles in for softs.

He emerged with 2.3s in hand over Russell but, if the intention was to push over the final laps, the soft wasn't up to it and Leclerc spent the balance of the race struggling to stay ahead of the Mercedes. With clear air ahead, Antonelli then focused on pulling away from Verstappen, giving the Mercedes pitwall a scare in the process as he asked for a car check after brushing the wall at Turn 7.

So, Antonelli finished 4.351s ahead of Verstappen, and extended his points lead to 81, on a day he might otherwise having been squabbling for second or third in Norris's wake. Such are the machinations of momentum, if you believe in it.

"It's good to win and I think the pace at the end was good," said Antonelli.

"But if I have to be realistic and honest, today we didn't deserve to win. Lando deserved to win today, and so I think our result was probably P2 or even P3.

"I just didn't do a good enough job at the start, being a bit too aggressive and then putting myself in a bad position. So yeah, definitely things to work on. But all in all, today went well and I'm happy with that.

"But yeah, we're just going to try to be better in Baku."

The way things are going, you wouldn't bet against Antonelli leaving Azerbaijan over 100 points to the good.