It is unlikely that Ferrari were using the full performance of their new engine on its first day of running, and Antonelli gave a different analysis of his rivals’ pace.
The Italian, who leads Hamilton and Russell by 59 points in the world championship, will start the race from the back because of a grid penalty for using more than the permitted number of engine parts.
He said: “Ferrari definitely took a step forward with the new engine and now the speeds are the same. We know how good their car is in the corner and for sure it’s going to be a tight fight for pole tomorrow.”
Hamilton, 0.337secs slower than his team-mate, also complained about the balance of the car.
“It was really difficult to pull a lap out of the car,” he said. “It was not an easy one to drive in P2 for some reason. We made a couple of changes but it shouldn’t really have been bad. We are going to look and see if we can make the car better for tomorrow.
“The engine is an improvement, which I’m really grateful for the guys back at the factory for working on, but our (energy) deployment schedule is different to the others, our competitors. Seems like they maybe have less drag for the straights.”
At Ferrari, it is Hamilton’s turn to choose whether to go out before or after his team-mate during qualifying and he said: “The tow is everything here so likely to be looking for the tow.”
Slipstreaming is expected to have a powerful effect on lap time, and there are some expectations of a potentially controversial session as drivers search for it from other cars.
Mercedes have chosen this race for Antonelli to serve his penalty, despite the decision being likely to deprive him of a chance for a first home win, because they hope the long straights will give him a decent chance of recovering a strong result.
Antonelli was the quickest on the race-simulation runs towards the end of the season.
He said: “It’s amazing to be here and the support has been incredible, today a bit of a different day than usual, a lot more focused on long runs, a bit weird but we got a lot of data and looking forward to the next few days.
“It’s a track where you can do so many different things, it was interesting in the long run today running behind other cars and seeing what they were doing differently, where they were deploying compared to us.”
Norris has won both the last two grands prix from pole position but McLaren expected this to be a more challenging track for their car and so far it is proving to the case.
“Much trickier than the last few Fridays,” Norris said. “We are struggling for pace quite a lot more than the last few. We will see what we can change overnight but we are not in as good a position as the last few weekends.
“It is a bit everywhere, there is not one corner we are quicker than anyone else ahead of us. We are losing a bit in the straights compared to Mercedes, which we kind of expect, but also the high-speed (corners) is where we lose most of our lap time, which is normally where we are quick.”
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, still yet to win a race this year, was 0.818secs off the pace with ninth fastest time, behind the Racing Bulls of Arvid Lindblad and Oliver Bearman’s Haas.
The race runs, which can provide a clearer picture of absolute pace, were inconclusive, as Mercedes used the hard compound tyres, Ferrari the softs and Verstappen the mediums.
On the hard tyres, Mercedes were decisively the fastest, Antonelli just 0.038secs on average faster than Russell, with the McLarens of Norris and Oscar Piastri about 0.5secs down.
Hamilton and Leclerc on soft tyres were less than 0.2secs off the Mercedes. Verstappen, on the mediums, was about 0.3secs down on Antonelli.
That suggests that, at least on Friday, Mercedes and Ferrari are the leading contenders so far this weekend.
Bearman was benefiting from the new Ferrari engine, unlike team-mate Esteban Ocon, as well as an upgrade on the Haas.
Meanwhile, F1 has announced that it will host a three-day event for fans before next season in Milan on 18-20 February.
A successor to the F1 Live event in London’s O2 Arena in 2025, and with the same name, it will feature all 11 teams and their drivers as well as music and entertainment.
