Miami, Florida – early on the day at the door of the FIA press conference, the director of the Mercedes team, Toto Wolff, praised his rookie pilot Kimi Antonelli for “constantly accumulating.”
As the day became the night in the Hard Rock Stadium, Wolff had another reason to praise the young driver of the team, since Antonelli delivered a thunderous return at the end of the third quarter to ensure his first position of the Pope, for the Sprint F1 race of tomorrow.
“Kimi congregulations in its first position of the Sprint pole in F1,” Wolff said in the media report after the team’s session. “It was a great return in a tight session and it will be a moment that you will never forget.
“While it is good that we will begin tomorrow’s sprint from P1, the most important thing is the progress we are seeing of Kimi. He continues to learn and improve every weekend.
“Now he has exceeded a session, even if it occurred in the Sprint qualification. It is another important milestone in its development, and we will continually support it to attach this trajectory,” Wolff added.
The Mercedes chief was not the only member of the team that praised Antonelli. Andrew Shovlin, director of Team Engineering, also joined the fun.
“It’s great to see Kimi take a well -deserved vacuum cleaner! He has been strong since the first round of FP1, but clearly saved the best until the end,” said Shovlin.
Shovlin also paid tribute to a little history.
“Become the young driver to take a position in the pole in any format in F1 is a special moment and that deserves to savor at this time,” Shovlin continued. “Our attention will quickly focus on tomorrow’s thinking with the Sprint and then qualifying for the Grand Prix later in the afternoon.”
That was not the only story that Antonelli made on Friday. His last round in the qualification established a new record for the Miami International Autodome, now in his fourth year in the Formula 1 calendar.
Completing the team’s praise was none other than George Russell, who described the fifth for Sprint F1 race in tomorrow.
“First of all, mass congratulations to Kimi! I’m really happy to see him his first pole position,” Russell said. “It is a very fast leg from the first round in FP1 and that is really impressive. It’s great for him and for the whole team; I hope he can turn that into a strong result in tomorrow’s sprint.”
As for the young driver, Antonelli connected that he did not expect such a result.
“I feel above the moon. I didn’t expect it, but I felt good in the car,” Antonelli said after qualifying for the official F1 channel.
“I was able to improve the lap by return and find that consistency, and that return joined. I am super, super happy with that, and now we will enjoy this moment a little more, but I also want to try to concentrate and concentrate.
Antonelli will have the opportunity to repeat tomorrow when the lights come out for Sprint F1 race of 19 laps. He will face a high task to hold on to P1, since he will have the duo of McLaren Fast or Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris starting behind him in P2 and P3, respectively.
Even so, the young driver has already made some history here in Miami, and the weekend has begun to arrive.