Russel not out yet in FP2.

 

Really a shame for Kimi Antonelli and hope his confidence isn't broken because of this. I know Toto hasn't announced him as the 2nd driver at Mercedes next year, but several reports have him in that seat. It might be too soon just based on his F2 season. Really don't know who else would be in that seat for 2025 though.

This is another reason why crash damage should not be counted against the salary cap as it disincentivizes teams from putting young up and coming drivers in their cars, especially if they're against the cap and can't afford the damage. Can you imagine if this sort of crash would result in one or two of a team's cars not making it to grid by race 23 or 24?

 

Toto last week...

For the 2025 seat, which Lewis Hamilton leaves behind for Ferrari, Wolff accidentally revealed that Mercedes will be offering full support to "George and Kimi" in an interview with De Telegraaf. He said: “The two drivers in our car next year have our full support. I want to make it work with George [Russell] and Kimi [Antonelli].”

 

I am not so sure everyone chasing the next Max, Lewis, Seb is a good thing.

 

I think it was Karun talking about how Kimi, Bearman and I forget the third F2 driver, are not at the top of the points in F2 but are being most considered for an F1 seat. He said something like the teams see other things in their performance beyond the wins, which I thought was a little strange. Kimi is currently 7th in F2.

I really have to start watching F2 more as the few times I have watched the racing has been good.

F1 Academy is unwatchable. It looks like a LeMons race half the time.

 

I agree regarding watching more F2 as I'm not familiar with the nuances of that series as compared to F1, but the racing does seem to be very interesting. Although the cars are more similar, just like any other form of racing, the teams do make a difference and from what I've seen on highlights, Kimi was brilliant at Spa in both the wet and dry. Unfortunately, the team he races for is not very consistent (think Ferrari in F1).

 

I will keep Antonelli in the overrated category until he proves otherwise.

 

To be fair, it was his second flying lap.

 

Found this thread on Reddit a while back documenting his cv. https://www.reddit.com/r/F1FeederSer...elli_so_hyped/ Would add to, surely the performance engineers are seeing the right things from his F1 simulator runs behind the scenes. Don't think there's any way a driver of his gen gets behind the wheel of an F1 car without that substantiation.

Hijacking the top comment, I would say he lost a lot of points in FRECA due to bad luck and hence the final points does not tell the whole story. Here are some example of his incredible driving on top of my mind:

You Tube

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Started from 8th and was leading the race in under 3 laps. He finished 12 seconds ahead of the 2nd place in a shortened race and in tricky wet conditions. He was consistently more than a second faster a lap than the next fastest car.

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Wet conditions again and went from p3 to p1 with great overtakes. (RIP Dilano)

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Not many people know this but he also participated in a round of GT Sprint races where he qualified on pole and dominated the race, winning by over 10 seconds. Mind you he was just 16 and this was his first ever GT race. I am not sure about the experience of others but there are dudes in their 20s and 30s in the race and should probably have far more experience than him. (Edit: won by over 20 seconds)

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Qualified p2 in his second race of the weekend and secured p3 in the race after some amazing battles. He could have won this race too but there are time penalties handed out to those who finish in the top positions of the previous race (The winner gets the highest penalty and it keeps reducing further down- Ik this is a weird system).


There are many more moments in his career which clearly shows he has the talent and should standout in f2 this year. He has certainly the best resume currently among all the present drivers in feeder series and the hype is justified imo.

 

Well, it looks like Antonelli’s crash didn’t dampen the enthusiasm for him. Mercedes just announced that he’ll be taking Hamilton’s empty seat in 2025.

 

I can’t believe I’m going to say this. But I think Norris is going to beat Max to take the driving championship. The Red Bull car looks terrible.

 

Its going to be close for sure for the drivers title. Any hiccup of a DNF from either driver could be the difference. The Red Bull is no where in terms of straight line speed or cornering speed.

 

If Maxie gets stuck cruising around in 4th-6th tomorrow, the whining quotient will be turned up to 11! lol

Great laps from the Maccas; just awesome to see how that team has progressed and Zac Brown made a genius move locking in both drivers on long term contracts a year or two ago. He knew McLaren had the potential to be something special.

Very surprised that Lewis ended up as far down as he did given he was the fastest in FP2 and FP3.

 

Those Papaya cars are fast!

 

I give a lot of credit to Zak and Andreas Stella as well as their team back at the factory. For whatever reason, that team's upgrades seem to hit on a higher percentage than any other team on the grid.