Andrea Kimi Antonelli has been promoted to fourth on his Formula 1 debut in the Australian Grand Prix after Mercedes successfully appealed a five-second penalty for an unsafe release.
Antonelli had initially been relegated back to fifth as a result of the penalty but upon a review and examination of the roll-hoop camera footage, the Italian was found not to have impeded Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber.
It ensured Antonelli's weekend ended on a high after he had blundered in qualifying at Albert Park and spun in the opening stint of the race. But the positives far outweighed any negatives during a race weekend where even a double world champion smote the barriers.
“Some very good drivers spun or hit the wall, it was easier to not finish than finish,” Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1.
“He kept his cool and it was very impressive to see. It shows he has a good future so long as the trajectory carries on as it is.”
Antonelli’s error in qualifying, which left him 16th on the grid, is a question of degree: he wasn’t as far over the Turn 6 kerb as many other drivers, but the combination of strike angle and the presence of gravel deposited by other cars taking bigger liberties damaged his W16’s floor. Starting so far back would have been a substantial challenge even if the weather had been favourable on Sunday.
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As it was, Antonelli was facing only his second experience of driving an F1 car in the wet, the first having been a brief excursion in the 2021 Mercedes at the Red Bull Ring last April, where snow brought the day to an early conclusion. So this was his first time in a ground-effect F1 car and on current-generation intermediate tyres.
The learning curve was made all the steeper by the early deployment of the safety car after Jack Doohan’s spin: the slower pace meant tyre temperatures plummeted.
“It was super-difficult at the start,” said Antonelli. “And behind the safety car the tyres were cooling down massively.
“The grip was nowhere. And also with all those white lines, it’s super-super-tricky because, as soon as you go over them, even in high-speed corners, you lose the grip all of a sudden.”
Having passed Hulkenberg for 12th on lap 15, Antonelli then spun and had to do it all again.
“I was lucky to spin in a place where it was safe,” he said.
“After I had the mistake, it kind of hurt my confidence a little bit. The team did great to calm me down and get me back into the rhythm, and made all the right calls.”
Antonelli then continually made progress up the order as others crashed out or made incorrect strategy calls amid the ever-changing conditions, before the rookie then nailed Alex Albon for fourth during the final six-lap sprint to the flag after the last safety-car period.
With the chequered flag almost within sight, though, the team was notified that Antonelli would be given a five-second time penalty for being released into the path of Hulkenberg in the pitlane. It didn’t pass on this message to its driver, but instead told him to keep on pushing to build a gap.
“You can only shake your head,” said Wolff. “It came up [on the screen] as an incident, nobody saw it – it wasn’t played [on the TV feed] – and then 90 seconds later there was a penalty.”
When the five-second penalty was applied it dropped Antonelli from fourth to fifth, behind Albon again, but the team swiftly filed a petition for a ‘right of review’ with the stewards.
The crucial bar that must be met in these circumstances is the presence of “significant and relevant” new evidence “which was unavailable to the party seeking the review at the time of the decision concerned”.
In addition to the roll hoop footage, the stewards also examined helicopter footage and concluded that Antonelli didn’t cross into the ‘fast lane’ immediately, and checked in his mirror before doing so. The in-car footage showed there was no risk to mechanics standing further down the pitlane. Based on these new elements, the stewards reversed their decision, restoring Antonelli to fourth place.
“I learned so many things,” concluded Antonelli. “Obviously it was disappointing yesterday, and probably could have been a different race, but you never know.
“It was good to experience what happens at the back, but obviously we don’t want to start that far [back] anymore.
“It was tricky, and especially on the slick tyre it was quite scary, but I’m really happy with how it went.”
