Antonelli explains ‘steps forward’ with Mercedes’ upgrades during Free Practice at US GP

Kimi Antonelli believes that Mercedes are gaining a greater understanding of their latest upgrade package, with the Italian satisfied that they’re “taking steps forward” at the United States Grand Prix.

The Silver Arrows had hoped to reinstate the advantage they enjoyed at the start of the season through their updates, which were originally introduced in Malaysia. However, they didn’t deliver the anticipated progress, resulting in their choice to revert George Russell to the older specification last time out in Singapore.

He’s now running the same W17 as his team mate, whose improvement from P5 to P2 across Free Practice 1 and 2 at the Circuit of The Americas left Antonelli finally feeling more comfortable with the upgrades.

“Having both cars on the same upgrade package helps because we can try lots of different stuff and we can have a better understanding of this package,” the 20-year-old explained. “Since Singapore, having that week off, we were able to analyse the data and understand better what this package needs.

“However, we’re still trying to find how to put the car in the right window. Definitely we’ve been taking steps forward and we’ll see what we can do to improve even more.

“It was a bit of a difficult start [to FP2] because the seat was not fixed properly, so it kind of felt like being on a rollercoaster on Lap 1, with the seat moving in the high speed [corners]. We lost a little bit of time but it was still a good recovery.

“I felt good. I felt better in the car compared to FP1. Still lots of work to do but it was a good step forward and now we’ll try to improve even further for tomorrow.”

Antonelli wound up just 0.042s adrift of Charles Leclerc’s benchmark during Friday’s running, giving him confidence that he can fight at the front on a weekend when victory – combined with low-scoring results for his rivals – could see him secure the Drivers’ Championship.

But Deputy Team Principal Bradley Lord was insisted that Mercedes are approaching the weekend like any other, especially as competition amongst the top four teams appears to be remarkably tight once again.

“Ultimately, for Kimi to win this weekend, it means the team has had a really bad race because the maths says George needs to be ninth or below,” Lord said. “That isn’t how we want to go racing and [it’s not] the result we’re aiming for.

“It’s a very minimal chance. It’s theoretically possible but in practical terms, this isn’t the match point weekend. We’ll just try and get out there, get as many points as possible and then see when the maths starts to come towards us a little bit more.

“We were looking at the overlays of the long runs and you’ve got to squint at it to really see too much difference between Leclerc, [Max] Verstappen, Kimi, [Lando] Norris looks strong as well.

“It’s going to be a very close battle between all eight cars, I think there, and similarly on a single lap. It’s a matter of a tenth, half a tenth here or there, so it’s going to be really hard-fought and exciting.”