Kimi Antonelli secured pole position for the Formula 1 Japanese GP after a hard-fought qualifying session in Suzuka. The young driver highlighted the difficulty of the session but celebrated the performance that guaranteed first place on the starting grid.
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The result puts Antonelli in a strategic position for the race, with the lead right at the start as the main objective. The Italian believes that maintaining the lead into the first corner will be decisive for his chances of victory: “It’s great to take pole position here in Suzuka today. I’ve been having a lot of fun driving on such an incredible circuit and pushing to the limit in the qualifying session,” Antonelli stated after the session.
Despite the positive result, he explained that the qualifying session was not simple: “The car was a bit more twitchy than in FP3, so it wasn’t easy. We also had some tire overheating, something we had to manage,” he said.
Even with these difficulties, Antonelli highlighted the consistency in the decisive laps: “We managed to put in two good laps in Q3, and fortunately, our pace was strong enough to take P1.”
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With pole secured, the focus now shifts to the race. The Mercedes driver highlighted that the start will be a crucial moment to maintain the lead: “I’m looking forward to tomorrow. The start will be fundamental, but we are focused on ourselves and what we can do to keep the lead into the first corner. We’ll work on that with Bono and my other engineers tonight to be as prepared as possible,” he added.
Finally, the Italian driver showed confidence in the race pace shown previously: “We hope to be able to maintain the lead, put the car in clean air and take advantage of the ‘long run’ pace we showed on Friday. Let’s see what we can do,” Antonelli concluded, aiming for a strong result in the Japanese GP.
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