On the other side of the garage, Antonelli has set out how he will approach Round 3 at Suzuka as he continues to build his experience in F1.
“In the past two weekends, I’ve been learning massively, especially Qualifying, and the goal this weekend is to try to maximise the Qualifying performance, especially tyre warm-up, trying to put them in the right window,” the Italian explained.
“But the approach is going to be quite similar. It’s a new track for me. It is also back to a normal weekend, so I can build up to the weekend, but I want to start off as well in a good rhythm because this track is not an easy one and you need the right confidence, so it’s about finding the right balance with how much you push without overdoing too much in order not to hurt your confidence.”
Like Russell, Antonelli remains mindful of the challenge posed by other teams but sounded a positive note about how Mercedes have performed so far.
“I think teams like Ferrari and Red Bull didn’t really show their true potential, but I think us, we are working with good consistency, we are working really well with George and the team and we are being able to find the right balance with the car both in Qualifying and in the race,” the 18-year-old reflected.
“At the moment, we are kind of maximising our potential. Of course, we want to do better but I think, so far, we are going pretty well.”
