Kimi Antonelli makes George Russell declaration as Toto Wolff spells out Mercedes reality
Toto Wolff was delighted to see Kimi Antonelli prove his doubters wrong as the Italian teenager produced a coming-of-age qualifying performance in Shanghai. By going quickest overall the Mercedes youngster cemented his place in the record books as the youngest Grand Prix pole-sitter in world championship history, aged 19 years and 202 days - smashing Sebastian Vettel's previous record at 21 years and 73 days.
"For the first time in a long time in a qualifying session, I felt comfortable to push more and more after every set of tyres," the delighted teenager beamed. "It was very weird in Q2, the amount of understeer that appeared in the car and we couldn't fix it. I struggled a little bit there and had to make a lot of adjustments during the lap, just to help the balance, but it was a clean lap."
Antonelli was undoubtedly helped by a problem for his team-mate George Russell, who was the favourite for pole until he suffered a problem on his car at the start of Q3.
But he did just manage it, going second quickest with the one lap he completed, two tenths slower than Antonelli's pole time. Mercedes team principal Wolff made the reality of the situation clear when he said "we'll never know" whether Russell could have toppled his team-mate if he had a second crack at it.
But the young Italian was confident that he would have still been in with a good shot of pole even if the two Mercedes cars had been on equal footing. He added: "Even if George had a second set, it would have been fairly close between us two. I'm happy with the result and there's a big opportunity ahead tomorrow."
There was an expression of pride on Wolff's face as he reflected on a landmark moment for his young driver, early in his sophomore season on the F1 grid. The Austrian said: "Many said the kid was too young to be in a Mercedes, that we should have prepared him otherwise.
Wolff then offered a little more insight into the problem Russell suffered early in Q3, adding: "If the kit lets the driver down, like it did on George's side... You want to see them head-to-head, so it's a shame that George couldn't do the lap.
"It looks like it's electrical, we had to power cycle the car three times, switching it on and off, until on the third time it went. I didn't think it was going out but, to my surprise, we still did the lap.