"I feel very empty emotionally right now," admits Kimi Antonelli following engine failure en route to certain podium.

Though he had lost out to the sheer pace of the Ferrari, combined with Lewis Hamilton's tyre management, his team's strategy and the perfect timing of the VSC, it proved not to be for world championship leader Kimi Antonelli.

In a haunting echo of Montreal, just moments after establishing himself over his Mercedes teammate, he suddenly pulled to the side of the track with an engine failure, as was the case for George Russell in Canada.

The DNF, his first of the year, allowed both race winner Lewis Hamilton and Russell to close the gap in the Drivers' Chamionship.

"I didn't see it coming," admitted the teenager. "All of a sudden, I was at the apex of Turn 5 and the car gave up.

"It is what it is: part of racing," he added, "there's nothing we can do about it.

"Of course, there's a bit of concern because we've had several issues so far in the year," he continued. "It's a point that we need to work on because losing so many points in this kind of races, it hurts.

"Of course, I feel very empty emotionally right now, because we're trying to soak in what has just happened. So, I need to travel with a head high because the pace was good and I think, you know, I'm already looking forward to Austria because I think we can do really well."

Once again, the teenager went head-to-head with his Mercedes teammate, who had dominated for much of the weekend. But come the race, Antonelli was up for the fight from the off, and despite an earlier failure to overhaul Russell, the youngster finally pulled it off just five laps from the end, only to retire moments later.

"We had a really strong pace, I think," he said. "I had one opportunity in stint two as well, and if I get that opportunity and it can be a different race," he said of the earlier move on Russell.

"Today was really hard to follow because it was so warm, the tyres were overheating so much, and the tyres were just sliding when staying close to the car in front. So, it was hard to manage, but we had a really strong pace and once I got the opportunity, I went for it.

"Of course, it was a shame that the issue happened with so little laps remaining, I think it was three or four, but that is what it is, part of racing. And now we focus on to the next one."

Almost as an afterthought, and just a week after the Monaco fiasco, the stewards hit Antonelli with a penalty having appeared to miss his fourth case of violating the track limits.

"We don't know yet what was the cause of the failure," said Toto Wolff. "Most of the others were battery related, but different failures. It was not always the same. So we need to understand what it was.

"Clearly, the symptom was quite similar, like George in Montreal, where the car just switched off. But, you know, we will be really digging deep to make sure that this doesn't happen again.

"I'm underwhelmed," he admitted. "We can't DNF cars in a kind of regular, continued way. Losing 25 points in Montreal and losing another 25 points, or 18 points today... in order to finish first, first you have to finish. And reliability, this is what we need to get on top of. And that's number one. So nobody is happy about that. And we will leave no stone unturned to understand."