{"id":320397,"date":"2025-08-05T17:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T17:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/320397\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T17:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T17:47:09","slug":"antonelli-pleased-with-point-after-tough-and-never-ending-hungarian-grand-prix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/320397\/","title":{"rendered":"Antonelli pleased with point after \u2018tough\u2019 and \u2018never-ending\u2019 Hungarian Grand Prix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kimi Antonelli was delighted to score a point with a hard-fought 10th place finish during a “tough” and “never-ending” Hungarian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes<\/a> rookie’s weekend had been made difficult following a mistake in Saturday’s Qualifying at the Hungaroring, with a deleted lap time due to track limits dropping him from P11 to P15 on the grid. At a track where overtaking is difficult, the teenager delivered a strong drive to rise up the order and ensure both Silver Arrows cars finished in the top 10.<\/p>\n

Pitting after 22 laps for a set of the hard tyre, Antonelli<\/a> then made the C3 rubber last the distance as the team swapped him to a one-stop strategy, with only Esteban Ocon<\/a> making a set of tyres last longer in Hungary.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was tough, it was tough,\u201d he said afterwards. \u201cFirst of all, it was not the plan to do one-stop. But then considering the position where we were, we decided to just keeping going given the pace was quite decent.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially when I was in free air, we were able to improve the time and be consistent. But yeah, it was difficult, it was difficult. Happy to have brought home the first point of the European season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonelli has endured a torrid recent run, with bad luck combining with some mechanical woes and a few mistakes limiting his points-scoring opportunities since F1 returned to Europe. Four DNFs in six races were difficult to take for the Mercedes rookie and, bar his podium in Canada<\/a>, his only other two finishes since the European chunk of the season began were a P18 and a P16.<\/p>\n

After scoring in five of the first six races, with a fourth place and four sixth-place finishes, it has been quite the downturn for the teenager in his maiden season. But Antonelli has kept his head up, and since Mercedes reverted to an older rear suspension, the Italian seems happier with his car.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat final stint was a very long one, it felt never-ending,\u201d he added. \u201cI did close to 50 laps on that hard tyre and, by the end, I was just hanging on out of the final corner each lap and defending into Turn 1. The cars behind had superior grip but I was able to keep them behind<\/p>\n

\u201cI am really happy that my confidence in the car has come back this weekend. I leave Budapest feeling much more comfortable after moving back to the previous rear suspension. Yesterday\u2019s Qualifying was just a shame as the pace was clearly there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can take this feeling into the second half of the season and look forward to it with optimism now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was quick to praise his rookie driver too, after Antonelli drove a mature race to keep some faster cars behind \u2013 and continued to learn and develop as a driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday hanging him out there for tyre survival was another part of the development that he needs to go through,” Wolff said.<\/p>\n

“He scored a point, he defended against Hadjar behind, and I’m satisfied with that. Hopefully we’re going to get strong in the second half of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antonelli’s point, plus George Russell’s podium, keep Mercedes in the chase for second in the Teams’ Championship, where they currently trail Ferrari by 24 points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli was delighted to score a point with a hard-fought 10th place finish during a “tough” and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-320397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114977416410839730","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320397","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=320397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}