Kimi Antonelli is drawing a hard line between himself and the Mercedes team-mate who just beat him.

“He’s always been my rival,” the Italian said after finishing fifth in Azerbaijan, before laying down the target for the next round.

“I’ll make sure next week I re-establish the order and just make sure that I will be back at my usual level because this weekend I was driving more like a grandmother,” Antonelli told reporters.

Baku drive done in ‘damage save mode’

Russell had earned the victory on his own terms, converting pole into a lights-to-flag triumph that cut Antonelli’s championship lead to 66 points with eight rounds remaining.

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He held off Max Verstappen by 0.196 seconds in a race repeatedly interrupted by safety cars.

Antonelli started from 16th on the grid after crashing out of Q1, and drove a controlled recovery to fifth in what he called “damage save mode”.

“I was driving a bit like my grandmother today, just damage save mode. You know, I just didn’t take a risk,” he said.

Wheel-to-wheel contact had torn up the left side of the Mercedes floor early in the race, and he chose to protect the car rather than chase places.

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“If I had the same pace as at Monza or in previous races, it would have been different. It would have been just full attack,” he said.

The fifth place ended a run of two consecutive wins at Monza and in Madrid for the Italian, whose maiden victory came at the Chinese Grand Prix in the second round of the season.

Bahrain Grand Prix in name only

The race Antonelli has targeted is one of the strangest fixtures of the season.

Formula 1 and the FIA relocated the round to Malaysia after security concerns in the Middle East forced the cancellation of the original April date in Sakhir.

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Sepang was written into the calendar between Azerbaijan and Singapore from 2 to 4 October, with Bahrain retaining the naming rights and the ticket revenue.

It is the first Formula 1 race at Sepang since 2017.

Mercedes go into the weekend leading Ferrari by 160 points in the constructors’ championship, keeping the intra-team focus on Antonelli against Russell.

The race weekend at Sepang begins on Friday 2 October.

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