{"id":44782,"date":"2026-03-07T09:16:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T03:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=44782"},"modified":"2026-03-07T09:16:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T03:46:43","slug":"australian-grand-prix-kimi-antonelli-crashes-heavily-during-final-practice-at-albert-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/formula-1\/race-weekend\/australian-grand-prix-kimi-antonelli-crashes-heavily-during-final-practice-at-albert-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Grand Prix: Kimi Antonelli crashes heavily during final practice at Albert Park"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes rookie <strong>Kimi Antonelli<\/strong> suffered a dramatic crash during the final practice session ahead of the Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne\u2019s Albert Park Circuit on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The incident occurred in the closing minutes of the session when the young Italian driver had just begun a flying lap. Antonelli lost control of the car at the exit of <strong>Turn 1<\/strong>, sending his Mercedes heavily into the outside wall.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kimi Antonelli into the barrier! \ud83d\ude31<\/p>\n<p>Here's the sizeable crash which ended the Mercedes driver's FP3 \ud83d\udc47<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/F1?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#F1<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AusGP?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#AusGP<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ZC1PrM1JE0\">pic.twitter.com\/ZC1PrM1JE0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Formula 1 (@F1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/F1\/status\/2030112141278138381?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 7, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>After the initial impact, the car slid back across the track and struck the concrete barriers again, resulting in a <strong>violent double impact<\/strong> that caused significant damage to the car.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the severity of the crash, Antonelli quickly confirmed over team radio that he was <strong>unhurt<\/strong>. The 17-year-old driver safely climbed out of the car moments later, providing relief to the Mercedes garage and fans watching the session.<\/p>\n<p>However, the accident has left the Mercedes mechanics with a major repair task ahead of <strong>Qualifying later on Saturday<\/strong>. The team now faces a race against time to rebuild the car after the heavy damage sustained during the crash.<\/p>\n<p>Antonelli, who is competing in his debut Formula 1 season, has shown strong pace throughout the weekend in Melbourne. The team will now hope they can repair the car in time so he can take part in qualifying for the <strong>Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli suffered a dramatic crash during the final practice session ahead of the Australian Grand Prix at\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":44783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4669],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-race-weekend"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44784,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44782\/revisions\/44784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}