Andrea Kimi Antonelli reflects on podium in F1 Brazil GP plus the Turn 1 incident, as George Russell satisfied with salvage weekend plus Toto Wolff on Antonelli’s run.
From the get go, Mercedes’ Antonelli looked on pace, whether it was the F1 sprint or the main race. He not only finished second in the former after qualifying second, he repeated the same in main qualifying and the grand prix on Sunday. But he had to fight it out on the final day against Max Verstappen.
The Dutchman was an unlikely opponent but he had to fend him off in the closing stages, which received praise from team boss Wolff. His race was not just the Red Bull driver, but also at the start when he inadvertently hit Charles Leclerc to knock him out of the grand prix.
Oscar Piastri tried a move on the inside after safety car re-start, but he and Antonelli touched, which sent the Italian into Leclerc. A slow re-start from the Mercedes driver allowed the two to attack him. Despite the hit, the Italian youngster managed to continue on unscathed and without a penalty.
Wolff felt the performance on a non-known circuit was down to expectation. Considering that Antonelli hasn’t raced in Brazil, it was beneficial since there was no expectation on performance and results. This potentially helped his cause and explained why he didn’t do well on European tracks.
For Russell, it was a straightforward outing where he didn’t have enough pace to attack for the podium. The Brit took it as one of the weekends where it didn’t work out. But Wolff was pleased with his defence against Piastri, much like how Antonelli was keeping Verstappen at bay.
Race, pressure –
Antonelli: “Way too stressful. I mean, obviously, when Max did the last pit stop and Bono told me the gap, I was like—ah well, I cannot say because they’re going to fine me now—but I was like, “I might be in trouble,” you know, because he was just nine seconds behind. And obviously, he was on new Softs, so he had… I think this race he had very strong pace. He did an amazing job coming back and he just put me under a lot of pressure at the end. I had to really push the tyre to the limit, and it wasn’t easy. But I think we did our best and I’m really happy with that.”
Russell: “At least my side, we weren’t really with pace this weekend, of course we have some ideas on why that maybe but P4 and P2 for Kimi is a good result for the team. But realistically in qualifying, I don’t think we had the pace to really…I think we overachieved, that’s the positive. I think it is just when most weekends is really strong, you expect to have a bad one but you got to be realistic in 24-race season, you’ll have that weekend here and there. This weekend has been that for me, we already had a weekend like this early in the season, Monaco is the only other one, so I am not too concerned. It was obviously quite strange, we saw what happened with Max in qualifying and we see how quick they were in the race.”
Wolff: “Well, obviously, we’d like to fight for a win, but that wasn’t the case today, but for a moment, it looked like he was catching Norris a little bit, but that was probably more management. Yeah, we were all excited to see that panning out. That is how motor racing should be. And it’s the reason why we love the sport, fighting so hard for a position. That’s how motor racing should be like Formula 1 should be, fighting for positions, whether you’re the attacking person, the attacking guy or the defending guy.
“I’m really proud of the job that both of them did because Kimi’s P2 is obviously a shining light here but George defending from Piastri in exactly the same way, it’s something that I enjoyed witnessing. Now, energy management was great. I think between the engine guys the race engineers and the driver who tried to optimise energy harvesting and energy deployment to the best possible way, on having all we had on the main straight. And saving the energy in other parts, and I think that was a big contributor to us, not losing that race.”
Turn 1 incident –
Antonelli: “Well, first of all, the restart—I accelerated a little bit on the wet patch, so I got wheelspin and lost momentum going into Turn 1. But to be fair, I found myself in a very difficult position because I had one car on the outside and one car on the inside. I tried to brake late, not too late. The problem is I didn’t see the car next to me anymore. I still tried to do a decent line for the position I was in.
“And yeah, ended up getting hit. I was lucky to come away like that, because obviously I hit quite hard Charles. Unfortunately, I ended his race, but on my side, I was lucky to come away with not such a big damage. I had a minor damage on the car. I think the steering wheel was not fully straight, but I was very lucky to come away with it and to be able to continue my race.”
P2 fight –
Russell: “Exactly, the goal now is to finish P2 in the championship and this race was much better in this regard, especially considering the pace we had, so yeah.”
Wolff: “Yeah, but you can see how quickly it goes. You have a weekend where you have a double DNF like they [Ferrari] had and the other team’s scoring strong enough point, the 30 points, when you can have it, you can have it in the other direction too, in any of the three races. So we just need to keep both feet on the ground, hopefully consolidate the gap, and just take it day by day, weekend by weekend.”
Antonelli performance, expectation –
Wolff: “I think all weekend it was strong, from the get-go. It’s good to see. Maybe it was coming to a track that he didn’t know. It’s a bit easier. Expectations are maybe lower. Maybe pressure is not as high as some of the Europeans and then the execution was faultless at the end. Being able to hold, to fend off, fight off Max on a newer and softer tyre, well, that was really strong and testament to what’s to come. I think it’s a development. Next year he will come to these tracks that he knows without expecting to kill it. And that’s the learning year, the year that we always expected to come with all the ups and downs. Today is an up, definitely, a good moment.
“There will be more difficult ones, but let’s see the next few races. I think we’re seeing the young boy becoming a young man, and performing. I think I just said it before you came. I think it’s also managing his own expectations. He’s so young. He’s just 19-years-old. You come to a track where, you know that you’ve performed very well in the past, won some of the, some of the European ones, and then you’re on the back foot. You have a sensational teammate that is as good as it gets. I think coming to a track that you don’t know is almost like less pressure. It’s that, your expectations are lower. Everybody else’s expectations are lower. The kind of fan pressure is less than on some of the European tracks. And I think that plays a big role.”
Here’s race start: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-sao-paulo-grand-prix-polesitter-norris-leads-away-from-antonelli-on-the-race-start.1848333750055262302
Here’s Turn 1 incident: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-sao-paulo-grand-prix-leclerc-out-and-piastri-up-to-p2-after-dramatic-restart.1848334755685601334
Here’s podium shout: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-sao-paulo-grand-prix-antonelli-celebrates-his-hard-won-p2-finish-at-interlagos.1848342876810252346
Here’s what Oscar Piastri said
Here’s what Charles Leclerc said