Kimi Antonelli's sensational win from the back of the grid in the Italian Grand Prix was thanks to a great drive, but perhaps also a little help from strategy and a timely virtual safety car.
The Italian was the only Mercedes driver to make a pitstop during the race - and ultimately defeated his team-mate and championship rival George Russell.
Mercedes split the strategies between its drivers, putting Antonelli on mediums after the early red flag. That was the only option for the Italian to go to the end without stopping, having started the race on hards. Russell, on the other hand, started on mediums and switched to hards after the race was stopped following Charles Leclerc's crash - and stayed on that tyre for the rest of the distance.
For Antonelli, Mercedes used the opportunity to switch him to hards when Lance Stroll's stoppage caused a virtual safety car on lap 27.
By that point, Antonelli had already made his way through the field and was battling Russell for the lead - although Mercedes asked him not to attack his team-mate after the initial phase of the fight, allowing them to try to build a gap to Max Verstappen.
Then came the call for Antonelli to pit. And although the Italian was able to come back and overtake his team-mate on fresher tyres, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said the team itself didn't know which strategy would ultimately prove better.
“We didn't know what was the better strategy," he told the media, including Motorsport.com, after the race. "At that stage, the system said that the one-stop [for Russell] comes out ahead. That two-stop was coming close to the end, but wouldn't catch. So that's what the software said."
“It was also the right thing to split the strategies because it was unknown what the better one would be. In the morning meeting we said the hard tyre is going to go forever. You can start on it and finish on it and you can see with George it was a forever tyre but it didn't have the performance that of the medium."
The decision to stop Antonelli was made despite him reporting that his tyres were in good shape. “We didn't talk to Kimi about the stop," Wolff confirmed. "We asked for the state of the tyre and he said, 'Well it's actually good' but it was clear that we saw abrasion and I think it was on Lewis' car. We saw some abrasion on a McLaren. So it was the right thing to do. And that's why it didn't need any big discussion.
“But then having said that, Kimi was able to extract 35 laps or 40 laps from that tyre in a consistent way and that's certainly his skill."
Russell himself believes he had enough pace to win the race had Antonelli stayed on the same strategy. However, Mercedes' bold decision to split strategies and perfectly utilize the VSC proved to be the key to Antonelli's dramatic victory in front of the home crowd.
Baca Juga
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