Kimi Antonelli drops Ferrari engine upgrade warning ahead of F1 Italian GP
Kimi Antonelli has made a claim about Ferrari's upgraded F1 engine at the Italian Grand Prix.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli believes Ferrari’s upgraded engine has moved it on a par with Mercedes at Formula 1’s Italian Grand Prix.
Mercedes topped Friday practice at Monza as George Russell set the pace in FP2 from Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, with championship leader Antonelli putting the third-fastest time on the board.
Despite Russell ending up 0.120 seconds quicker than Leclerc, Antonelli suggested that Ferrari has made significant gains with the upgraded engine it has introduced for its home race.
The true performance of the new Ferrari engine will not be clear until qualifying and the race, but Antonelli has claimed the data he has seen points towards a notable improvement.
Ferrari has so far lagged behind Mercedes in terms of straight-line speed and engine performance all season.
“Ferrari they definitely took a step forward with the new engine,” Antonelli said after Friday practice.
“Now the speeds are the same. We know how good their car is through the corners so for sure it’s going to be a tight fight for pole tomorrow.”
Antonelli will start his home race from the back of the grid due to using too many engine components this season after reliability problems earlier in the year.
That meant the 20-year-old Italian spent Friday’s practice running mainly focusing on the race.
“Today was a bit of a different day compared to usual,” Antonelli explained.
“A lot more focus on long runs, so it was a bit weird I’m not going to lie. But overall it was a good day. We got a lot of data and now looking forward to the next two days.
“It was interesting in the long run today, running behind other cars to see what they were doing differently and where they were deploying compared to us.
"So it was very interesting. That’s why I think we will gather a lot of data and now we will look forward to tomorrow.”
Antonelli has already confirmed he will help his team-mate - and direct title rival - Russell in qualifying by providing slipstream assistance to the second Mercedes.
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