Mercedes: Kimi Antonelli suffers cooling vest failure in Austin Sprint qualifying. Andrea Kimi Antonelli faced a cooling vest malfunction that hindered his Austin Sprint qualifying.

Kimi Antonelli faces an unexpected setback

Andrea Kimi Antonelli narrowly missed out on reaching SQ3 in the Austin Sprint qualifying, finishing just six thousandths of a second behind Lewis Hamilton in tenth place. The young Bolognese driver revealed in post-session interviews that he experienced a malfunction with his cooling vest, the special suit designed to keep drivers cool under extreme heat. Antonelli explained, “I had a problem. I was wearing the cooling vest, and it malfunctioned. Instead of keeping me cool, it was heating me up. I faced serious difficulties during the session.”

The disappointment of missing the top 10 was clear. Antonelli added, “It’s frustrating to be eliminated in SQ2 by such a tiny margin. I felt comfortable in the car during SQ1, and just one good lap would have been enough to progress. Unfortunately, I locked up twice on my final SQ2 lap, which cost me dearly. We definitely had the pace to reach SQ3 and fight for a top-five position, so it’s really frustrating. We’ll give our all in the Sprint and then aim for a better qualifying session tomorrow afternoon.” Antonelli will therefore start from the sixth row in the Sprint, taking the eleventh fastest time.

George Russell unable to replicate Singapore form

George Russell finished fifth in Austin. While he expected Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, and Oscar Piastri to be ahead, George Russell was clearly surprised by Nico Hulkenberg’s impressive performance. “I didn’t get the maximum out of the car, but it’s fair to admit that we were never in contention for pole today. Nico Hulkenberg drove an amazing lap to claim fourth place; we certainly didn’t expect a Sauber to be ahead, so congratulations to him and his team,” Russell commented.

He added, “As we’ve seen all year, on our good days we fight for victory, and on the bad days we end up fifth. Today we finished fifth, but we hope to have a stronger car in the race than we did in qualifying. Sprint weekends can make it challenging to start off on the right foot, so we’ll do our best in the Sprint and then aim to improve the car for both qualifying and Sunday’s race.”