Kimi Antonelli suffered a nightmare start to the new Formula 1 season as he suffered a huge crash in final practice ahead of the Australian Grand Prix. The damage done to his Mercedes car was so extensive that his mechanics were immediately pitted in a race against time to rebuild it in time for qualifying just a few hours later.

Mercedes are the pre-season favourites for the title and George Russell showed the pace that they have by topping the timesheets at the end of that final practice sessions. But they were facing the very real prospect of only being able to field one car in qualifying as Antonelli nervously paced the front of his garage while the rebuild was still going on as qualifying began.

Antonelli had been quick to get out of his smashed-up car after the hefty crash at turn two, given the medical all-clear after mandatory checks given the high-speed nature of the collision with the wall. From there, all the concern was about whether or not he would be able to participate in the first qualifying session of the new season.

Speaking in commentary during that final practice session Sky Sports F1 pair Martin Brundle and Anthony Davidson voiced their doubts that Mercedes would be able to repair the damage in time for qualifying. But they were helped by a Max Verstappen crash which brought out the red flags and gave them extra time. They made the most of it and, by the time the session resumed, Antonelli was in the queue waiting to exit the pit lane.

More than that, he found the pace to be able to comfortably secure safe passage into Q2, whooping with delight as that was confirmed before sending a message of gratitude to his colleagues. The Italian told his race engineer Peter Bonnington over the radio: "Thank you guys, you're the best."

There is a potential sting in the tail to come, though, with Antonelli under investigation for an alleged pit lane infringement during qualifying. He could be in line for a potential grid penalty if the stewards deemed that he or Mercedes broke the rules during Q1.

While Sky's pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz also shared a worry, suggesting the crash could even have a lasting impact on the rest of Antonelli's season. He said during the live broadcast: "There's no good time to crash but, in F1, you know that the worst possible time in practice to crash is in the last 10 minutes of practice three going into the qualifying session.

"In the garage it was playing out like a Drive to Survive episode. Kimi was there, Toto [Wolff] was reacting, stony-faced. Kimi didn't go over to Toto for quite a while, he was with his engineer Peter Bonnington trying to understand what had just happened.

"We wait to see what the effect on the rest of the weekend will be for Kimi Antonelli, and potentially on the rest of the year as well. Remember how much his accident in Monza in 2024 - in his first free practice session before he even became a fully-fledged F1 driver - affected him throughout the whole of last season? Hopefully, he'll be able to move on quite quickly."