George Russell not surprised Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli beat him in Miami qualifying

George Russell dismissed his fourth consecutive head-to-head qualifying loss to Mercedes teammate Kimi Antonelli this season, saying it was no shock to see the 19-year-old maintain a bonus over one lap in Miami.

Russell final outqualified Antonelli throughout dash qualifying on the Chinese Grand Prix in March, with the Italian taking pole place on the final three grands prix in addition to second on the grid for Saturday’s dash race in Miami.

Russell, who’s seven factors behind Antonelli in the drivers’ standings, might solely handle fifth on the grid for Sunday’s Miami Grand Prix, with a lap time that was 0.624 seconds off his teammate.

Although Russell admitted to creating a mistake on his ultimate lap in Q3, he stated he at all times felt Antonelli would maintain the sting in qualifying in Miami.

“Well, I just made a mistake on my last corner, last lap, I was about 0.3 seconds up,” Russell stated. “I’m a little bit annoyed, but this is a track I’ve always struggled with. You know, Kimi was pole last year, I was P5, and today he’s pole and I’m P5.

“And it is simply very low grip right here, , it is sliding round rather a lot. The tarmac is sizzling, just like Brazil, . I believe Kimi, once more, was extra aggressive than me there.

“Whereas I’m much more comfortable with the high grip conditions, where the tire and the car is more connected to the ground.”

Mercedes staff principal Toto Wolff described Antonelli’s pole place lap as “spectacular,” however agreed with Russell’s evaluation that the observe suited the Italian driver extra.

“George told me there are drivers that struggle on certain tracks, and here the asphalt is very smooth,” Wolff advised Sky Sports. “It’s almost like a [tennis] player who is good on clay and another who is better on a hard surface.

“But by qualifying he made it up in the instances and it was only a smidge lacking to P3, so I’m actually completely happy to additionally see his growth by qualifying on a observe that he’s not 100% comfy on.”

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Antonelli’s pole position on Saturday represented a turnaround from Friday’s sprint qualifying in which McLaren’s Lando Norris beat the Mercedes driver to pole position by 0.222 seconds.

Wolff said Mercedes’ engineers compared their Friday data with customer McLaren’s engine and noticed that their cars were not deploying the same amount of electric energy early in the lap.

“The staff made a mistake, all of us” Wolff said. “We had been scratching our heads as a result of we did not evaluate [in performance] to our engine prospects.

“Into Turn 4 we lost three tenths of a second and it was a deploying issue that we fixed for today and that put us back on par with all the others.”