Antonelli impressed despite his FP1 crash
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says that Kimi Antonelli was “astonishing” in his first public laps in the W15 before crashing early in FP1 at Monza.
Driving George Russell’s car Antonelli was briefly top of the times, and had completed just five laps when he spun into the tyre wall.
The Italian F2 star is tipped to be confirmed as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement for 2025 as early as Saturday morning.
“He’s okay because the crash was 45g, so that’s important,” said Wolff. “Second priority is to get the car ready for George, so the programme doesn’t suffer too much, which hopefully is going to be okay.
“And the third one, it’s unfortunate, because I guess having had an hour to run, we would have seen some good performances. But that’s what we always said.
“He’s a rookie. He’s very young. We are prepared to invest into his future. And these moments, they will happen, and they will continue to happen next year, but there would also be a lot of highlights.
“And I think what we’ve seen today was we’d rather have a problem in slowing him down than making him faster. Because what he what we’ve seen from one and a half laps, is just astonishing.”
Asked what Antonelli told the team on his return to the pits Wolff said: “Well, he apologised, first of all. And I think what this is what you need to do when you bring a car back that looks a little bit like a Lego box falling on the floor.
“But he also said that he felt so much confidence , the car was good. I guess he was just bitten. Everybody suffered from, from lots of temperature, and especially rear temperature out of Ascari with these kinds of speeds, and that’s why the rear went away, stepped out.”
Wolff indicated that Antonelli will drive again in FP1 in Mexico City, with street venues and sprint weekends meaning there are few opportunities.
“We haven’t completely decided yet, but I think Mexico,” he said. “I think a strong driver needs to recover from these things and cope with the pressure.
“And obviously this weekend it wasn’t easy for him, because he still needs to compete in F2, you have all these shenanigans around you in Monza, Italian kid that’s being hyped, first time in a Mercedes, and that must be a heavy burden.
“But if he wants to be a champion one day, he needs to cope with it, and I have no doubt that he can and he will.”
Asked if he felt guilty about being part of the hype building around Antonelli Wolff said: “I think the circumstances are guilty. In our industry, we perfectly understand who is capable, and I think how it all panned out here, he’s jumped F3, he’s pretty much won everything before.
“And then it’s clear, you start to become a Mercedes driver. You’re racing, you testing in FP1, and the same time you’re under the magnifying glass, because it all happens in Monza. And has been a while that an Italian driver was in a top team.
“I’m sure that this can be a lot for an 18-year-old. But I said before he needs to swim, and these days that are so difficult, like it is for him at the moment, it feels certainly terrible and that’s part of the development curve.
“And I don’t want to be the one who picks out great moments and says, well, did you see that sector? Did you see that lap time? Or we could have been third or first or whatever,
“But what we see is there’s performance, and we’ve even seen that in the few laps that we’ve seen.”
Adam Cooper F1 