{"id":20537,"date":"2025-04-15T00:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T00:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/20537\/"},"modified":"2025-04-15T00:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T00:06:09","slug":"antonelli-disagreed-with-mercedes-tactics-%c2%b7-racefans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/20537\/","title":{"rendered":"Antonelli disagreed with Mercedes tactics \u00b7 RaceFans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/a> expressed doubt over Mercedes\u2019 strategy as he failed to score for the first time since his Formula 1 debut.<\/p>\n

Having started fifth, Antonelli fell to 11th place at the finish. He was the only finisher who made three pit stops.<\/p>\n

Mercedes appeared to commit Antonelli to a three-stop strategy when he made his second pit stop on the 25th lap of 57 and took a set of soft tyres. Five laps later they called him in again in response to the Safety Car period.<\/p>\n

Antonelli questioned the decision when his race engineer Peter Bonnington told him to pit as he approached the final corner. \u201cAre you sure?\u201d he asked. \u201cAffirm,\u201d Bonnington replied.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes driver had been running eighth before his final pit stop. As he left the pits for the third time, Antonelli reiterated his doubts over their strategy. \u201cMan, I don\u2019t think it was the right thing,\u201d he said. \u201cNow everyone is in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s see how this all works out,\u201d Bonnington replied. \u201cWe were likely to then have to stop again on that previous tyre,\u201d he added. \u201cEveryone will probably be going to the end from here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after the restart, Antonelli was forced wide by Carlos Sainz Jnr<\/a> at turn 11. He later passed both Williams drivers and Jack Doohan but finished one place outside the points behind Oliver Bearman.<\/p>\n

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Afterwards Antonelli admitted he was unsure the team had got its strategy correct. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit confusing because obviously the first time I got undercut, and that was fine, I was expecting it,\u201d he told the official F1 channel.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then obviously when I put the soft [on] after the medium, we did two laps and then there was a Safety Car and I felt I could have stayed out. Because obviously with the Safety Car the tyre would have cooled down anyway and probably with a bit more free air it would have been a different story.\u201d<\/p>\n

However he admitted he could have done a better job of looking after his tyres. \u201cI need to review this with the team,\u201d he said. \u201cI think on my side I could have probably chosen a bit more wisely the way I was pushing after the pit stop, just to save a bit more tyre.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior to last weekend the rookie driver scored points in all of his first four races for Mercedes, including three grands prix and the sprint race in China.<\/p>\n

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2025 Bahrain Grand Prix
\nBrowse all 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix articles<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrea Kimi Antonelli expressed doubt over Mercedes\u2019 strategy as he failed to score for the first time since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[12355,13328,4199,707,4200,4859,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-20537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-2025-bahrain-grand-prix","9":"tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-mercedes","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114339065706818814","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}