Kimi Antonelli explains key to landing historic F1 pole position

Kimi Antonelli has explained that the key to his historic pole position at the Chinese GP was "staying calm" after the drama around team-mate George Russell.

Already holding provisional pole position, Antonelli shaved his time to a 1:32.064, which stood as the benchmark, with Russell the last to set a time. 

This was Russell's only lap of Q3 following a scare in the early stages, but he fell 0.222s short of Antonelli's time, which handed the Italian the record. 

Antonelli, as of March 14th, is 19 years, 6 months, 18 days old, eclipsing Vettel's record of 21 years, 2 months, 11 days from the 2008 Italian Grand Prix.

Antonelli is also the first Italian to take a world championship grand prix since Giancarlo Fisichella at the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix for Force India, and it is the 49th overall for an Italian driver.

"Yeah, it was a pretty clean session, so I am really happy," Antonelli explained.

"George had an issue, so it would have been cool to see him with two [runs], but it was a really good session. 

"It was clean, and there were no mistakes, so I am looking forward to the race.

"I saw George had the issue, but I just tried to keep my focus, stay calm and deliver a good lap, which I did at the end."