As unfortunate as Russell was, it should take nothing away from the quality of Antonelli’s weekend.
He was more comfortable in the car than Russell, the pace came more easily to him, and he never once looked like not winning the race, not even when the VSC gifted Leclerc the lead.
Mercedes’ battery deployment issue also affected him on the first lap – it seems the fact Verstappen passed him on the entry to Eau Rouge was down to this, rather than clever driving by Antonelli to get the Red Bull’s slipstream up the long straight that follows.
“It was crazy,” Antonelli said. “To be fair, I was so confused about what was happening because Max came flying past me before Eau Rouge, and then I passed him back.
“But then I saw Charles almost come alongside me, and I was like: ‘What the heck is happening?’ I had no clue. I was just trying to hold the position on track, and I was looking in my mirror the whole time because I just saw so many cars coming. But it was a crazy start. Luckily, we got away cleanly.”
These issues, it is becoming apparent, are common for most teams in the context of the complexity of this year’s engines, their close to 50/50 split between internal combustion and electrical power, and inherent energy starvation.
Antonelli said: “Sometimes you just don’t understand. I had the same in Australia, for example. It can be a little bit down to driving, but sometimes the system just does something a little bit different.
“For the team, you have to appreciate the work, because the system is very complicated. Of course, they’re trying to make things a bit easier, but sometimes it’s hard to get it perfect.
“Also, with the driving, sometimes, especially on tracks like this that are very energy-demanding, if you start driving differently, then for the system it’s a bit crazy. So, it is tricky.
“But I have to agree that this weekend, for George, there was a slight issue. I’m sure it will be fixed for Budapest.”
Antonelli had just made his pit stop when the VSC was deployed to allow marshals to recover some debris from the track.
It was the second time it had happened. The first was too early for Antonelli to stop, and this second one gave Ferrari a chance to stop Leclerc and have him rejoin still ahead of Antonelli, as a driver loses about half as much race time stopping when the VSC is out and cars are restricted to a slower lap time for safety reasons.
Although Antonelli was able to consistently build an advantage over the early laps, and then slowly reel in Leclerc and pass to reclaim the lead in relative comfort, his pace was perhaps not as strong compared with everyone else as expected.
In that, at least, there is some hope for competitive racing to come.
Lando Norris, whose McLaren team have the first of two imminent upgrade packages coming for Hungary, said: “Maybe a little bit surprised they weren’t much stronger.
“They still won the race, so it’s not like they had a bad weekend. But we were certainly closer [on pace] today than we were expecting, and that’s a good sign.”
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