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By Saajan Jogia
Sports Contributing Writer
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Mercedes Formula One driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli crashed into Red Bull's Max Verstappen on the opening lap of the Austrian Grand Prix. The incident was a hard knock for Verstappen, as it took both drivers out of the race.
Following a late race start after Carlos Sainz's Williams FW47 caught fire, Kimi Antonelli braked late into Turn 3 and locked up his tires before crashing into Verstappen.
Verstappen reacted on the team radio, saying, "I'm out. I got hit like crazy. F***ing idiots!" Antonelli appeared to apologize to Verstappen after the incident, which was a big setback for Mercedes and Red Bull.
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The crash was the second major incident of the day, after Sainz struggled to get his car going in the formation lap. The problem brought out the yellow flags before the Spaniard was able to launch the car. However, his car's brakes caught fire in the pit lane, prompting the Williams crew to swing into action. Though the fire was eventually put out, the incident led to a DNS.
Speaking after the incident, Kimi Antonelli said:
"I think it was a normal start, then going up to P3, I was just trying to maintain position. I didn't want to do anything because I knew there was no space in front. But then when I hit the brakes, I locked the rear, and I got caught by that, and I lost the car.
"I had to first avoid the Racing Bulls, but then I just couldn't stop the car. Unfortunately, I hit Max. I feel sorry towards the team and him, of course."
Kimi Antonelli confirmed that he apologized to Max for the incident. He said:
"Well I just apologized straight away. I recognized it was a fault of me and I just felt sorry because I ended my race, but I ended his as well."
Addressing the incident, Verstappen said:
"I mean, we had a good start. That was a nice improvement from the last two races, where I was not particularly happy with the start. But yeah, then in Turn 3 the race was over.
"Of course, at that point, I didn't know what happened, but we had quite a bit of damage on the car, and it turned off. So yeah, I guess unlucky a little bit yesterday in qualifying and unlucky today in the race. But if you look at the weekend, we were not where we wanted to be in terms of pace, and we have to try and analyze that and hopefully have a little bit more of a positive weekend next week."
The Dutchman was asked what he said to Kimi Antonelli after the crash. He answered:
"I just asked what happened, because he was the only guy there with me with his wheel hanging off. So I was like, maybe - well, I'm pretty sure he hit me.
"Then of course I saw the footage once I came back, and it happens. Every driver has made a mistake like that in their careers. And Kimi is a very big talent, so he learns from that—and that's all fine."
He added:
"Yeah, of course it's not what you want. At the end of the day, I'm probably the most disappointed about it. But that's racing, you know. We've had a lot of great moments here, so maybe we got a little bit spoiled with that as well. Sometimes that's the case."
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