Antonelli 'mad' at himself about crash in qualifying for Azerbaijan Grand Prix

[p]The 20-year-old Italian, who missed most of Friday’s practice sessions after suffering a hydraulics failure, blamed himself for making a mistake as track conditions changed and delivered unexpected extra grip.[/p][p][a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/antonelli-andrea-kimi/ptGu0mT1/"]Antonelli[/a] clipped the wall on Turn 1 in Q1 and picked up a puncture, his first mistake since crashing in final practice in Australia.[/p][p]He wanted to continue but race engineer Pete Bonnington overruled him, telling him it was a "fairly big job" and to come into the pits.[/p][p][b]"The grip was coming up very quickly, lap by lap,"[/b] said Antonelli.[/p][p]"Obviously, I turned in and then suddenly I had a lot more front end than the lap before and I touched the wall.[/p][p][b]"It’s a mistake from my side. Very unnecessary and I'm mad about it and we'll try to do better tomorrow.[/b][/p][p]"The car has been very strong all this weekend and George ([a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/russell-george/xxF56RaN/"]Russell[/a]) has been doing incredibly well, but we'll try our best to recover as many places as possible."[/p][embed guid="da2ae8a3-17c3-4489-ae88-4118eeb94f1d" url="https://x.com/F1/status/2103478278489243816" social-type="twitter" /][p]His Mercedes team-mate George Russell took pole position, the 12th of his career and fifth this year, by more than eight-tenths of a second ahead of Ferrari’s [a href="https://www.flashscore.ca/player/leclerc-charles/KlCOSRub/"]Charles Leclerc[/a] to boost his faint hopes of reducing Antonelli's 81-point lead in the title race.[/p][p]Antonelli ended up qualifying 16th on the grid with many drivers forecasting that he will finish second behind Russell in the race.[/p][p]He vowed to overcome his poor grid position as he did at his home Italian Grand Prix where he won from 19th on the grid after taking power-unit penalties.[/p][p][b]"Kimi is starting well down again,"[/b] said Russell.[b] "But he has shown that he can be at the back and end up on the top step a few times so... we’ll see what we have to do."[/b][/p]