Formula 1 Live Ticker: Next Pole for Antonelli and Mercedes

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The record world champion only finished P6 – and thus, according to his own statement, was below his potential. He explains that the car actually felt good until his crash in FT3.

But after the accident, it was no longer “the same car.” After the repair, the balance felt different, he reports and explains: “I think we could have fought for the top 3 if I hadn’t had this problem in FT3.”

Nevertheless, he hopes to still be able to fight for the podium tomorrow.

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Antonelli was 0.317 seconds ahead of the rest of the world in qualifying. Sounds not like much, but it is actually the biggest margin of a polesitter this season so far.

For Antonelli, it was the sixth pole of his still very young career. With that, he has tied in this statistic with Phil Hill, Alan Jones, and Emerson Fittipaldi.

The Briton was half a second behind his teammate. Toto Wolff explains on Sky: “George loses two and a half tenths in the corners and loses two and a half tenths on the straights.”

“It’s so complex with the power units that we can’t exactly explain where the deficit on the straights comes from. We have been analyzing all day,” the team principal ponders.

One possible explanation is that Russell is still running an old engine, while Antonelli has received a new one here. However, this is currently only a theory.

A quick note in our own matter: In the evening, we will be back with a livestream on the Formel1.de YouTube channel for you. Kevin Scheuren and Stefan Ehlen will report at 21:00 with the analysis of Saturday.

The Dutchman thanks his teammate after P2. “[The slipstream] definitely helped me, otherwise I wouldn’t be standing here now. Otherwise, I would probably have ended up in P6 or so,” says Verstappen.

“He really gave me a good slipstream in the last sector,” emphasizes the four-time world champion, who also knows that Hadjar cannot help him in tomorrow’s race.

“Tomorrow I will probably be looking in my mirrors and keeping an eye on the people around me. But at least today we achieved a really good result,” he says satisfied.

Report

Result

Starting grid

In ten minutes, qualifying in Spa begins and we will shift the action back to our session ticker for now. So there is a short break here, after the end of qualifying it continues here with the voices on Saturday.

And if you want to know how you can watch the Belgium race live stream this weekend, you can find out here!

He is probably not the only one to see it that way, but expert Martin Brundle explains on Sky before qualifying: “Antonelli has a lot of confidence. He likes the balance of the car, and that gives him trust.”

“He seems to be the favorite, but at the end of the last practice there wasn’t much between the drivers,” says Brundle. But we have already heard from Toto Wolff that Antonelli still had room for improvement.

The colleagues from Sky report that Lewis Hamilton can participate in qualifying immediately. Ferrari replaced the suspension, the floor, and the rear wing after the crash in FT3.

In addition, Hamilton also received a new gearbox as a precaution. The car is now ready for use again, it is said.

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Small side note: We already knew that Norris, Hadjar, and Stroll have grid penalties this weekend. Now Fernando Alonso has also been added.

The Spaniard also received new engine parts and, like Hadjar, must start at the back of the grid tomorrow. Norris and Stroll each drop ten places.

Formula 1 qualifying is coming up, but before that, Formula 2 was just on track. There, Mercedes development driver Joshua Dürksen won the sprint race.

This ended the winning streak of Red Bull’s Nikola Tsolov, who had previously won three Formula 2 races in a row. This time he was “only” fourth. Oliver Goethe also scored a point in P8.

Kimi Antonelli goes into qualifying as the favorite after the practices. And according to Toto Wolff on Sky, he could have been further ahead in FT3. Because the Italian could not finish his second fast lap earlier.

“We heard he couldn’t engage first gear when braking into turn 1 and had to abort the lap,” says Wolff, who explains: “I think he just pushed too hard because he couldn’t get the gears in at the entrance.”

Otherwise, his lead would probably have been even bigger. There is also room for improvement for teammate George Russell. There was “a small energy error” in FT3, Wolff reveals.

Otherwise, Russell’s time would have been “much better,” the team principal is sure.

The record world champion crashed at the end of FT3. His crash was almost a copy of the accident Pierre Gasly had yesterday at exactly the same spot.

Time is now pressing at Ferrari, because qualifying in Spa starts at 16:00 and the car must first be repaired.

The accident can be seen again here in the video:

Report

Result

In ten minutes, the third and final practice in Spa begins. We will shift the action back to our session ticker for now. So there is a short break here, after the end of practice it continues here as usual.

And if you want to know how you can watch Formula 1 live stream at the Belgium weekend, you can find out here!

Because we already talked about the grid penalties this weekend: In Spa, it is quite possible to win a race even from outside the top 10. The traditional track appears twice in this photo series:

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Photo series: The greatest comebacks in Formula 1 history