Lewis Hamilton faces a daunting challenge at the British Grand Prix after being beaten to pole position by Mercedes teenager Kimi Antonelli, with former boss Toto Wolff declaring the 19-year-old has "no weaknesses." Hamilton will start Sunday's race from third place, three-tenths of a second behind Antonelli, who also won the Sprint race earlier on Saturday by overtaking the seven-time world champion.
Antonelli extends title lead
The gap between Antonelli and Hamilton in the Drivers' Championship has widened to 47 points, with Antonelli looking likely to increase it further this weekend. The Italian is also 43 points clear of his Mercedes teammate George Russell and has amassed six wins, seven podiums, and five pole positions this season.
Wolff, speaking to Sky Sports F1, praised Antonelli's composure: "Satisfying. It's impressive how he's calm and then just kills with a smile. It's a pleasure to watch. You can see the delta time getting faster and faster and faster and no mistakes. He's really performing on such a high level considering it's only his second year."
Wolff compares Antonelli to greats
Wolff added: "He's being compared to the great ones and I think he has all the traits to be a great one but you need to lock in the results. He doesn't show any weaknesses. He was a little bit on the back foot, no problem. As any driver, you don't like to be sent out first, he made that comment in the pitlane and then he parked it. It's compartmentalised. It doesn't play any role in his ability to drive fast."
Reflecting on Antonelli's difficult 2025 season, Wolff noted: "He had a really bad run last year, it was nine races in a row without any points and George was operating very well. He was probably victim to the pressure, to the new environment that comes upon you. He was just 18. In that way it's remarkable how he came out of the blocks at the beginning of this year. It's like he's an experienced mature driver but he's just 19."
Antonelli acknowledges room for improvement
Antonelli downplayed suggestions he has no weaknesses, saying: "Ah there always are! Of course. It's great. There's a really good dynamic in the team. A really good environment. I've been really enjoying the time with the team and also with Bono, my performance engineer Stefan and also Marcelo, has been great. I have a really great team around me and we've been enjoying the journey so far."
He highlighted the challenging conditions at Silverstone: "There's still occasions and situations where I still need to learn quite a lot but today was a good test because the wind was very gusty, it was unpredictable. Together with the team we had to work our way around a little bit. It was good because it was not a straightforward session. The start was a bit tricky. Really happy we were able to build momentum and just keep improving."
Hamilton explains struggles
Hamilton, who had secured sprint pole on Friday by just 0.011 seconds ahead of Antonelli, was visibly disappointed with third place behind his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc. He said: "Just wasn't as fast today. We made a couple of changes to the car but nothing major. Like the tiniest of changes. But yeah didn't feel quite as comfortable as I did yesterday."
Regarding energy deployment issues that affected Ferrari's performance, Hamilton added: "It was the same this morning in the sprint. Quite a bit of an issue for us, just having different performance to these guys. Whether or not we'll have something different tomorrow, we'll see. Any circuit when you're full throttle and the power is dropping away and the guy ahead is pulling away, obviously that's frustrating. We understand that's where we are. We keep continuing to work. This is a great result for the team to have a second and third. I'm hopeful we can try to apply some pressure tomorrow."
