Kimi Antonelli believes that the difficulty in overtaking will be one of the main challenges of the Spanish Formula 1 GP, at the new Madring circuit. The Mercedes driver also expects tire management to play a decisive role in the race.
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Antonelli will start from second position, behind pole position Lando Norris of McLaren. With Max Verstappen in third and the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc in fourth and fifth positions, respectively, the Italian considers that it will be necessary to find other ways to gain positions if stuck behind another car.
“Overtaking, yes, I think it will be very difficult. In one of the free practice sessions, I spent two laps behind a Williams trying to overtake, it was painfully difficult. Especially because tire degradation is quite high, and when you are behind, you start to slip more. That makes everything a bit harder,” Antonelli said.
The Italian driver acknowledged that the track requires a lot of effort to complete a lap, although he assessed that Monaco is still a more intense circuit. Given the expectation of few overtaking opportunities, Antonelli believes that pressuring the opponent and working with strategy can be alternatives to seek a position.
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“The only thing you can do is try to pressure the car in front, try to make it make a mistake or degrade the tires a little more, and then try to play with strategy. But when you have a very similar pace, it is difficult to make a move,” he added.
The young driver also foresees a race closely linked to tire life, but admits that there are still doubts about the durability of the hard compounds: “We really don’t know how the hard tire will behave, how durable it is, so we might have two stops, three stops. We’ll see,” Antonelli concluded.
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