It only took one lap to dream and make Miami’s Friday a historic, record-setting day: Andrea Kimi Antonelli stamped his mark on his first career pole position, becoming the youngest driver ever to start from the most coveted spot on the grid.
Of course, the Italian’s pole position won’t enter the record books, as it is not considered official, but it still sends a clear message: a first sign of the talent already admired in the lower categories and glimpsed in the early flashes of this season, as part of a logical growth path.
This growth also involves improving in the areas that had caused him the most difficulty in the first five races of the year, especially in qualifying, where the challenge was understanding how to make the most of the tires on a single lap.
This sensitivity develops with experience, as well as with the team’s work. Not by chance, one of the topics Antonelli touched on in interviews was the importance of the work done during practice sessions to understand how to exploit the tires.
This leads to two key aspects of his first career pole: the times recorded in the first and, especially, the second sector. Although acknowledging there’s room for improvement, when observing the best sector times from SQ3, it’s clear that Antonelli’s time in the first sector was in line with Oscar Piastri’s, second only to Max Verstappen, with a Red Bull that loses time on the straights but flies in the fast corners.
This is a typical characteristic of the RB21, inherited from previous models. But it was here that Kimi Antonelli made the difference: not so much in the time, which was still excellent, but in his approach. On other tracks, especially those with a complex first sector or long sequences of high-speed corners, the Mercedes driver struggled to make the most of the tires, resulting in grip loss and, sometimes, mistakes.
In Miami, however, he managed to turn this aspect into a strength: “From free practice, we explored a lot with tire temperatures, to extract the maximum potential throughout the lap. I was a bit unsure about the softs, but in the end, I felt the grip from the first corner and tried to push as hard as I could,” he explained after qualifying.
This is just one of the pieces of the puzzle for his pole, but other factors were decisive, such as the W16’s performance in high-speed corners, which, while not at the RB21’s level, was sufficient to challenge McLaren, as seen in Suzuka and Jeddah. In the long sequence of corners, Antonelli didn’t lose ground to the papaya car; on the contrary, he showed excellent traction exiting Turn 8, beginning to gain on the straight.
Mercedes has shown strong straight-line performance from the start of the season, partly due to a setup that tends to be lighter than their rivals. In Miami, they also made another step forward, modifying the DRS flap to maximize speed on the straights, especially for the race.
So it’s no surprise that the usual pattern repeated itself: a W16 very fast in the accelerations, with a 2 km/h advantage over McLaren and 3 km/h over Red Bull. The latter is the anomaly, usually one of the fastest, though it’s important to mention that all Mercedes-powered cars changed their PU in Miami, while Milton Keynes’ team had already done so, starting the rotation.
However, one of the main secrets of Antonelli’s pole remains his time in the second sector, as he was the only one, along with the two McLaren drivers, to break the 33-second barrier. In the case of the papaya team, though, this was quite predictable, given the competitiveness of the MCL39 in slow sections, particularly in managing tire degradation and understeering.
Much of the advantage over Oscar Piastri was built on the straight leading to Turn 11’s braking zone, but the decisive aspect was limiting the time lost in the slower section, where the two McLarens confirmed their status as a reference point. Another demonstration of the versatility of the MCL39, which performs well both in fast corners, thanks to significant aerodynamic downforce, and in slow sections, where the car’s mechanical qualities shine.
In the past, the W15 struggled precisely in these situations, particularly in sequences of corners, where it lacked aggressiveness and rotation. Mercedes engineers worked extensively on these areas during the winter, also trying to widen the car’s operational window.
For this reason, Kimi Antonelli’s ability to keep the tires in the right window throughout the lap, unlike his teammate who lost several tenths in that section, was crucial. This is also noticeable in the final corner, set up to maximize traction: Oscar Piastri, on the other hand, experienced a lock-up on entry, running wide.
Miami’s qualifying was a game of hundredths, where putting all the pieces together without mistakes was vital, as Antonelli himself pointed out in interviews. It marked an important first milestone, giving him the chance to run in clean air, as long as he can maintain the race lead: a crucial element in a race where tire degradation plays a key role. A responsibility, but also an opportunity to build a memorable Saturday.
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