'I Think It's Your..': Wolff Pulls Antonelli's Leg Over Driver Of The Day Recognition
The Chinese Grand Prix was once again a decent race for Mercedes, with their senior driver, George Russell, taking the third place on the podium.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff took a funny jibe at his rookie driver Kimi Antonelli, who was adjudged the Driver of the Day on Sunday, March 23, in the Chinese Grand Prix, despite finishing sixth behind the likes of Haas’ Esteban Ocon and world champion Max Verstappen.
Wolff mentioned that Antonelli was perhaps voted because of his looks and dragged his race engineer, Peter Bonnington, in the banter for his looks as well.
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As for Antonelli, he finished in P8 but was later promoted to P6 after both Ferraris were disqualified due to technical issues.
“Kimi, Driver of The Day, We just saw on the screen," Wolff said while speaking on the radio. “Me?" Antonelli questioned.
“I think it’s your looks and your target group. “And the looks of your race engineer also," Wolff said.
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Antonelli had a hard race compared to his earlier results, but as he mentioned, it was due to some damage that his car picked up early on in the race.
“I struggled this race, [it] was quite difficult to hold on. Already from Lap 1, I felt that something was weird with the car and then eventually after the race the team told me about the damage," Antonelli said.
“It looks like I hit some debris and that affected the performance quite heavily. I struggled with the rear in particular after that and that was something I wasn’t expecting," Antonelli added.
Meanwhile, George Russell had a drama-free run to third place as Mercedes bagged a claim to be the closest to McLaren on race pace.
Russell said on Thursday that his side is ‘capable of winning every race’. Antonelli was just eighth but Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said that he could have fought Verstappen for fourth if not for damage to his floor from driving over debris.
Antonelli was ultimately sixth, ahead of new seventh-place finisher, Williams’ Alex Albon. At 18, he is the second-youngest driver behind Verstappen in Formula 1 history to score points in Australia on his debut.
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