While ploughing into Max Verstappen in Austria was far from ideal, Kimi Antonelli said his Monza FP1 shunt was “worse” to come to terms with.

Having looked back through the data ahead of the British Grand Prix, Antonelli revealed that he actually matched the braking point of Mercedes team-mate George Russell, but locking the rear tyres triggered a rapid snowballing of events which resulted in him hitting Verstappen at Turn 3.

Kimi Antonelli data explains Max Verstappen crash trigger

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

It had been a trying Austrian race weekend for Verstappen as race day arrived, where he lined up P7 on the grid, a casualty of late Q3 yellow flags for Pierre Gasly’s spin.

Verstappen would be eliminated in the opening stages of the race as Antonelli got Turn 3 all wrong in his Mercedes, clattering into the side of Verstappen’s Red Bull and taking them both out.

It was an unwanted setback in what has been a clean and steady rookie F1 season so far for Antonelli, but the emotional toll did not equal that of Monza 2024, where Antonelli found the Parabolica wall early in his FP1 debut, in front of his home crowd.

“I think Monza was worse,” Antonelli told the media, including PlanetF1.com, as he compared that crash to his Verstappen shunt. “For me, Monza was like the worst ever.

“But definitely, I think after you go through difficult moments, they all help, in case you face them again, to overcome them in a better way.

“And I think the difficult triple-header was a really good learning, and it really helped me as well, to face the down moment of Austria and to kind of reset and come back stronger for this weekend.

“But definitely, these are all episodes that obviously you don’t want to happen, because, in some ways, they kind of hurt you as well, but they also make you stronger and when you get to the moment again, the difficult moment, you’re able to react in a much better way.”

F1 2025 head-to-head standings

???? F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

???? F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Antonelli dived into the data following his Verstappen crash, which led to an interesting discovery about the true chain of events which saw him carve between multiple cars en route to Verstappen.

“I obviously re-looked at the data,” he said, “and in terms of braking point, I didn’t break late, because I compared to George, and we broke roughly in the same point.

“But the thing is that I was quite close. I was in the slipstream of [Liam] Lawson, and obviously when you’re behind a car, you have a lot less load. So it meant that when I went to brake, I had a lot less downforce on the car and I started to lock the rears.

“I locked the rear first of all, and that’s why, when I had the oversteer moment, because of that, I had to release the brake, because otherwise I’d spin, and because I released the brake, now I need to avoid Lawson because otherwise I’d run into his back.

“And then when I realised I was again in a decent position with the car, when I went to brake again, now I was on the dirty side, and I just locked the front. It happened so quick that it was really hard.

“I think looking back, probably, if I would have stayed on the outside, I could have just gone fully wide on the outside, and I would have came away, you know, maybe losing one position or two, but still being on track and still be in the race.

“But of course, afterwards, it’s a lot easier to analyse things. In the moment it happens all so quick that I just tried to do my best, but definitely the fact that I had a lot less downforce because I was close to the car in front really played a big factor, and that was the main learning ahead of the next races.

“But of course, now we aim to start more at the front.”

Antonelli goes into the British Grand Prix P7 in the Drivers’ Championship standings with 63 points on the board, having scored his maiden podium in Canada.

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