Kimi Antonelli hits wall and suffers early exit from Azerbaijan Grand Prix qualifying

Championship leader Kimi Antonelli is set to start 16th on the grid at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after hitting the wall at Turn 1 and damaging his car beyond repair in the opening session of qualifying on Friday.

The Mercedes driver was on his second flying lap of the Q1 session when he clipped the wall on the apex of Turn 1 and damaged the front left corner of his car.

Antonelli initially tried to return to the pits, but his race engineer, Peter Bonnington, informed him to park the car at a safe point further round the lap.

"That looks like we've done something to the trackrod and upright, so that's a fairly big job," Antonelli was told after he pleaded with Bonnington to return to the pits for repairs.

The 20-year-old's initial lap in Q1 was good enough to secure the 15th fastest time of the session, meaning he made the cut for Q2 even though he was unable to take part in it.

As he watched on from the behind the crash barriers near where he stopped his car, Antonelli contemplated the reality of starting in the bottom half of the grid for Saturday's grand prix.

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The Italian currently has an 81-point lead over teammate George Russell in the championship and is still on target to cruise towards his first F1 title in just his second year in the category.

The qualifying crash will be a setback, but Antonelli will likely be buoyed by the fact he won from 19th on the grid at the Italian Grand Prix earlier this month.

Antonelli had experienced a disrupted Thursday practice in Baku after a hydraulic leak on his power unit caused him to lose track time at the end of FP1 and the start of FP2.