Antonelli does not expects Mercedes to challenge for victory in Bahrain

On the back of his best ever F1 qualifying performance, Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli does not expect that he or his team-mate George Russell will be able to challenge the field-leading McLarens for victory in Sakhir.

McLaren looked the quickest car all through the Sakhir weekend, and the papaya team continued to impress in qualifying that turned into a nail-biting session.

Oscar Piastri set a 1m 29.841s on his last lap to beat the Mercedes of George Russell, who set mighty lap times in the second and third qualifying segment.

However, given McLaren's dominant form across the practice sessions, it was a brilliant effort from Russell to bag second on the grid, pushing Piastri surprisingly close. However, he will serve a one-place grid drop penalty for a sporting infringement, but a third spot on the grid will give him every chance to fight for a podium place in today's Bahrain race.

His team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli backed his team mate up with fourth, his best qualifying performance of the season. However, he will also lose a spot due to the same sporting infringement.

Reflecting on his best ever F1 qualifying result, the Bologna-born driver said: “I made a mistake on lap one in Q3 and that put me on the back foot as I didn’t have a lap on the board. There was plenty of pressure to deliver on lap two, therefore. It wasn’t easy but I’m happy that I put together a decent lap.

"I made a few mistakes here and there across the session, but overall, it’s still my highest grid position of the season despite the post-session penalty and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. My confidence is continuing to build but I’m still learning. This is another good step forward for me. I think the race will be a really tight fight.

"I think it’s going to be really hard to challenge the McLarens, but it’s definitely possible to fight the others. Tomorrow is a long race; our pace looks similar with others so getting a good start is going to be important and we’ll see what we can do from there.”