Andrea Kimi Antonelli had taken his famous first pole position in Monaco, but the plaudits kept rolling in even as the adrenaline subsided.
“You see a few guys grow up from younger categories that have something special and when they switch categories, they are immediately quick. I think that was quite clear with Kimi, so that was not a surprise.
“But then when you get to Formula 1, it’s not only talent; things have to come together. You need to become a more all-round driver, and then you need to have the package to be able to do it.
“This year he’s showing that once he has a package that can do it, he is delivering as a driver. So that’s great to see and that’s what he has to do.”
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Those were the compliments of Max Verstappen, then man he beat to pole position — and the driver whose baton he’s on a trajectory to grab as forces a generational shift on Formula 1.
As Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said, “It needs one to know one”.
Greatness recognises greatness.
There is no higher pressure lap in motorsport than the final tour of Q3 at the Monaco Grand Prix. Everything is on the line. A mistake means an almost certain crash — and possible an out-of-position start at a circuit that makes overtaking almost impossible.
But the pressure was dialled up almost unimaginably for Antonelli.
It just his second entry in Monte Carlo, and last year he didn’t even make it past Q1 after crashing at the chicane.
And not only was this his first fight for pole; the man he had to beat was Verstappen, the modern grand prix benchmark.
Their laps were remarkably aligned, befitting the minuscule 43-milisecond difference between them at the end of the 3.337-kilometre lap.
Verstappen took the early ascendancy with a better run out of the first turn, Sainte Devote, to establish a 0.1-second advantage up the hill through Massenet.
The Dutchman was spectacularly good through Casino Square, anticipating a slide perfectly through the open corner to use every millimetre of road available to him. Despite being less willing to use the kerbs on the way down to Portier, his lead grew to around 0.14 seconds through the tunnel.
But then Antonelli took the ascendancy.
There’s something poetic about the fact it’s the chicane out of the tunnel that effectively seals the deal.
This time last year he was out in Q1 after clipping the entry apex barrier and popping off his front-right tyre.
This year his entry is still extremely aggressive — enough that it looks for all money he’s about to make the same mistake — but actually is exactly perfect.
Hopping over both kerbs on exit, his advantage stood at 0.8 seconds on the run to Tabac.
Verstappen clawed a little back through Swimming Pool and for a moment a more aggressive entry through Rascasse had him ahead, but a better exit from Antony Noghès ensures Antonelli crosses the line fractionally faster for his fourth pole position in five grands prix.
“Magic lap,” he said. “I was able to put it all together, and it was such a close qualifying with Max.
“This is one of the most intense, if not the most intense, qualifying sessions of the year, and it takes a massive effort, also in practices, because you just keep trying to get close to the limit.
“The walls start to come closer and it’s not easy to gain the confidence.
“But I have to be honest, I felt great this morning, and I’m happy that we could finish the job today.”
THE ODDS ARE IN ANTONELLI’S FAVOUR — IF HE CAN NAIL THE START
The Monaco pole-getter has won this race 33 times in the race’s 71-year history, a strike rate of 47 per cent.
But the odds of converting from pole have increased markedly with time, as reliability has improved and, most importantly, as the cars have got bigger such that racing has become extremely difficult.
Since 2004, 15 times the pole-getter has won the race, a strike rate of 71 per cent.
In other words, by modern standards, Antonelli is more than halfway home just by setting the fastest lap in qualifying.
Given overtaking isn’t expected to be much easier this year, the 29 per cent risk of defeat is mostly at the start.
The starts, of course, have been comfortably Mercedes’s weakest suit this year.
“I hope we get it right with the clutch tomorrow,” Wolff mused to Sky Sports. “He needs to make himself wide like a tourist bus around Monaco, because if you lose the start or you’re not there, it’s going to be really difficult.”
Antonelli is the second-worst starter in Formula 1 this season.
Across grands prix and sprints, he’s lost an average of 2.5 places per start on the first lap for a cumulative loss of 20 positions.
The good news is that Verstappen has been almost as bad of the line, losing an average of 1.5 places per start and 12 places in total.
Historically the Monaco winner comes from the front row 69 per cent of the time.
But the fact it’s two Ferrari drivers starting on the second row will influence those odds considerably — the Scuderia has the best starts in Formula 1 this year.
Charles Leclerc, starting fourth, is unmatched off the line, gaining an average of 1.8 places per launch for a cumulative gain of 14 places.
Lewis Hamilton is the equal third-best starter, with an average of 1.4 places gained and 11 places made up in total.
The top four, then, are assembled in order of worst to best starters.
“I know who is behind and I know they’re very good,” Antonelli said. “For sure they’re going to push me and they’re going to try to put pressure.
“It’s a pretty short run into turn 1 in Monaco, so I just need to get a clean start, don’t try to do the magic start, and then we’ll see from there.”
Historically, 90 per cent of Monaco winners have come from the first two rows.
No-one has won from outside the top four in the dry since 1985.
If Antonelli leads into the first corner, the trophy will be just about in his grasp.
RUSSELL ‘BAMBOOZLED’ BY ANOTHER HEAVY QUALI DEFEAT
The significance of the Monaco Grand Prix stands on its own, but as just another round of the world championship, it’s impossible not to put the qualifying result and race expectations in the context of the title battle.
Points leader Antonelli has taken pole again to extend his season-long streak of front-row starts.
His championship-challenging teammate, George Russell, has qualified sixth.
It’s the second time in three grands prix Russell has qualified on the third row.
Mercedes didn’t look like a credible pole contender on Friday night, but overnight tweaks put the team back into the game — though only the Italian was capable of hustling the car into contention.
Russell, the pre-season title favourite, never really looked in the mix.
The season is long, and we’re far from game over, particularly given Monte Carlo is such a peculiar challenge unrepresentative of any other circuit on the calendar.
But what’s worrying is the trend.
Russell hasn’t won since the opening round of the season, and though he points to misfortune denying him chances in China, Japan and Canada, Antonelli was at least as quick as him at all of those events.
Fuelling that trend is Antonelli’s obvious rise. Just as was the case in Miami, he’s belted Russell in Monaco.
It’s clearly worrying Russell too, who revealed post qualifying that he had no idea why he was slow.
“If I knew, I’d be able to not be in that position,” he told Sky Sports.
“The start of the year was just easy. Every lap I did in practice, qualifying, was P1, worst case P2.
“The last three races it’s just been nowhere — even [pole in] Canada … was pulling something special out of the hat and a little bit lucky.
“That’s just where I am right now. I don’t really know.”
He wasn’t totally bereft of theories, though.
“There are definitely some things we’ve seen where, with the changes with this year’s car, my natural driving style doesn’t suit it as [it did] last year’s car did, and Kimi and I have had different driving styles.
“I don’t want to go into too much detail, but it was clear last year and it’s clear this year, but obviously last year it suited me just fine and this year it’s suiting him perfectly well.”
It’s a far cry from Russell’s post-victory radio boast in Melbourne, where he declared with a Borat impression: “Very nice! I like this car! I like this engine!”
It seems part of his Monaco problem was down to how the Mercedes car works its tyres — gently, which is a strength at most circuits. Around the low-energy Monaco layout, however, Russell’s smooth driving style struggles to get temperature into the rubber. Antonelli, who’s livelier behind the wheel, had less trouble.
But Monaco doesn’t provide all the answers, and Russell knows it.
“I need to adjust to this, and I do my best to do that, but it still doesn’t answer why the start of the year was such a breeze,” he said. “I’m a bit bamboozled right now.”
The problem for Russell isn’t that this is a one-off poor performance that simply delays his inevitable rebound. It’s not even that, if he and Antonelli finish where they start, he’ll end up a whopping 60 points off the title lead.
The problem is that this is indicative of a form slump — or worse, of him being overpowered by a driver he can’t catch.
FERRARI’S MISSED MOMENT
Ferrari started qualifying as the clear favourite, having dominated Friday practice and despite Antonelli pipping both Leclerc and Hamilton in FP3.
Instead the team did what its fans must find painfully familiar: it underperformed at the critical moment.
Hamilton rescued third but was 0.228 seconds off pole position.
“Unfortunately [that was the maximum] today,” he said.
“Coming into today, we took a bit of a step back, lost some performance overnight, and then going into qualifying, the car was really in a bad place.
“I had to make huge adjustments to the wing in order to try and rebalance the car for some reason — I’m not quite sure exactly what went wrong. We’ll deep dive into it.
“We lost the chance to fight for the front row going into quali with the balance that we ended up with. It was a bit of a surprise.”
It sounds as though the team incorrectly estimated track evolution from day to day and even from FP3 to qualifying.
One of the less talked about dark arts of preparing for qualifying, especially at a high-risk, fine-margins venue like Monte Carlo, is setting up the car with a balance that will be just right when the track peaks in grip in Q3, not when it’s still relatively green in FP3 or even in Q1.
Perhaps Ferrari simply misjudged the way the track was going while Mercedes and Red Bull Racing nailed it.
Leclerc’s difficulties, though, were down to his confidence on the brakes, as has been the case not just all weekend but dating back to braking-critical Canada too.
Pushing to the limit in a bid to make up time, he lost his first Q3 lap to a big slide through Massenet and his last lap to a crash at the exit of Tabac after another big snap, though between the two runs he squeezed in a time good enough for fourth, 0.3 seconds off the pace.
“It’s for sure a combination of things,” he said. “Sometimes it’s only me; I think today it’s a bit more than only me.
“As a team and on my side of the garage it’s been a very messy weekend. We’ve had quite a lot of issues.
“I can feel when things click around this track and when I’m confident. I knew going into the race it would be extremely difficult to make anything work today. The confidence was not there.
“With all those issues on a track like this, on a track like Montreal, you are paying the price.”
It seems the clock is likely to keep ticking on Ferrari’s next win.
McLAREN’S ‘REALITY CHECK’
McLaren’s worst qualifying performance since the season-opening Australian Grand Prix was a “reality check”, according to Lando Norris, after he qualified behind teammate Oscar Piastri to lock out the fourth row of the grid.
McLaren improved relative to Friday, but the team was half a second adrift of pole position and the only team to never look like a genuine chance of starting on the front row.
“It’s not an eye-opener, but still a slight reality check of how far off we are,” Norris said, per The Race.
Piastri, who on Friday said he had no big ideas to get McLaren closer to the front, agreed the car had reached its Monaco ceiling.
“We have got a bit closer, things feel a bit nicer, but when you are lacking grip, unfortunately, there’s not too many levers you can pull to make up for it,” he added.
Team boss Andrea Stella said the problems are twofold: the car lacks downforce relative to other frontrunners, which in turn makes it difficult to warm up the tyres — and McLaren is a car with already very gentle tyre usage.
The reality check element here is that McLaren thought this sort of circuit would play to some of its strengths. It knew that it was lacking downforce but hoped car dynamics would keep it in the fight.
Instead, for the first time since Australia, it’s the fourth quickest team on the grid at a track where the Mercedes engine advantage is neutered — and it’s still a way behind the works team.
It won’t be like this in Spain, but Monaco has illustrated some big weaknesses with the McLaren car that will need to be solved it wants to challenge for victories this season.
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