Optimistic Antonelli predicting ‘very tight’ Baku Qualifying after positive Friday for Mercedes

Kimi Antonelli believes that Mercedes can "be in the fight" during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix after a positive Friday for himself and team mate George Russell.

The 20-year-old Italian finished fourth quickest in Free Practice 2 on the streets of Baku, just fractionally slower than Russell as the pair proved to be best of the rest behind the Ferraris of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc.

Antonelli was only able to finish 11th quickest in the opening one-hour session but admitted that he was aiming to build up gradually around the unforgiving circuit, not helped by almost half the session being lost to a lengthy stoppage for a track inspection.

"I think it was a pretty positive day. I was building up, taking it a bit easier today as obviously it's a street circuit and just trying to build my confidence step by step," said Antonelli.

"FP2 felt pretty good, obviously FP1 there was the big interruption so you kind of lose a little bit the rhythm but in FP2, I was able to build lap by lap.

"There's still a little bit of work to do, still two, three-tenths to find but I think was a pretty positive day and something we can build on for tomorrow."

Antonelli enters this weekend under pressure, with Team Principal Toto Wolff having publicly criticised his driver's performance at Monza in the previous race, something Antonelli agreed with during Thursday's media press conference.

The Formula 1 rookie has endured a difficult mid-season spell and has only achieved a best finish of ninth in the last six races, which came on home soil two weeks ago.

In comparison, Russell is on a run of eight points-scoring finishes but enters this weekend with an illness which has excused him from media commitments so far.

Even so, the Briton has shown encouraging pace in Baku, with tyre strategy between the the soft and medium Pirelli tyre likely to play a pivotal role in Qualifying given the similar performance between them.

"There's always something to find. Ferrari looks pretty quick but I think we can be in the fight and of course McLaren I think today didn't really show their real pace, so I think it can be very tight tomorrow," added Antonelli.

"We'll see also with the tyres because it seems like the medium is the faster tyre, so it's going to be quite tricky tomorrow but we'll try our best."