F1 | Antonelli keeps faith after Monza FP2 mistake: “I pushed too much, but I still feel strong”. Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains confident after a mistake in FP2 at Monza.

F1 | Andrea Kimi Antonelli remains confident after a mistake in FP2 at Monza

The Italian Mercedes driver made a mistake in Free Practice 2 that cost him almost an entire run on track, but his confidence remains intact: “I was going fast. We can do well.”

One year after his debut in a Mercedes, which ended in the worst way after just a few laps, Andrea Kimi Antonelli repeated the experience in Free Practice 2 at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza.

The home driver, after a solid first session, started very well in the second session too, setting an excellent time on Hard tyres. However, about 10 minutes into the session, Andrea made a mistake at the second Lesmo corner, spinning and getting stuck in the escape road.

“I pushed too hard for the grip available at that moment. It was a pity,” Kimi Antonelli explained at the end of yesterday’s day. “The day seemed to be going well. I had a good first practice and at the start of Free Practice 2 everything seemed to be going very well. For this reason, my confidence is still very high.”

The off-track excursion, which cost him almost an entire run, will force Mercedes and Andrea himself to follow a slightly different program than originally planned, in order to try to recover what he could not achieve yesterday afternoon.

“Obviously, we will have to follow a slightly different program (after the off-track excursion), but we will try to arrive ready for qualifying and the race.”

Antonelli, as mentioned, also went off track last year during the first practice session at Monza, the venue of the Italian Grand Prix. Andrea, after a series of impressive laps for a debutant, approached the Parabolica corner too fast, lost the rear of the car, and ended up in the barriers.

Andrea is currently in a challenging part of his season, coming off two retirements and two finishes outside the points. The pace he showed in Zandvoort was more than encouraging, but the mistake that caused Charles Leclerc to retire — and earned him a 10-second penalty — left him well outside the points zone.

Today, as the saying goes, is another day. Andrea will need to be really good at putting it all behind him, while trying to stay precise and clean on track, making the most of the Soft tyres in qualifying. If he manages to do that, he could then achieve some satisfying results in the race tomorrow.