Any Formula 1 rookie can expect to face a rollercoaster first season, and for Kimi Antonelli the last two races have certainly seen him encounter two extremes.
In Canada he qualified a solid fourth and went on to log his first podium finish with third place.
The Italian saw result that as a springboard to pushing harder earlier in the weekend, and thus being better prepared for qualifying.
However in Austria poor Mercedes form and not getting a final Q3 lap in consigned him to P9 on the grid.
Worse was to come on the first lap on Sunday when he lost control under braking for Turn 3 and took out World Champion Max Verstappen.
After the pain of clipping the chicane barrier early in Monaco qualifying this was undoubtedly Antonelli’s lowest low of a season that has seen a lot of highs.
To his credit he immediately apologised to Verstappen and to his team for his error.
He wasn’t making an ambitious lunge – something the FIA stewards acknowledged when giving him a three-place grid penalty for Silverstone – and in essence the mistake was a result of not adjusting his brake balance after the first corner.
“It was very unfortunate,” he said when I asked him about the incident. “Probably I should have just changed the brake setting going into T3, because I had the normal start, and I was just trying to maintain position. And when I went to hit the brake, I locked the rear completely, and I just lost the car.
“And when I lost the car, then I was about to hit Lawson, because obviously I lost a lot of deceleration. And then I had to avoid Lawson, and then when I reapplied the brake, I locked the front left, and just couldn’t stop the car.
“It’s a definitely the first mistake I do in the race start, and definitely it’s a big lesson, especially I just should have changed the brake setting, and none of this would have happened. So I think is a lesson for next time, and I’ll try to come back stronger in Silverstone.”
Expanding on where he’d gone wrong he noted: “Obviously, for a race start, we have the brake balance set to avoid locking fronts. But obviously T3 starts to be a strong braking, even in lap one.
“And definitely the brake balance for that corner was too rearward, and that caused the rear locking. And so I just should have changed the brake balance and put it a bit more forward, and none of that would have happened.”
Antonelli is smart enough and well trained enough to know that there were going to be mistakes in 2025. The trick is to learn from them, and he’d proven to be pretty good at that thus far.
“Obviously you can expect that in the first season you can have big highs and also big lows,” he said. “Of course, the thing I want is to minimise are these lows, and I want to be more consistent as possible.
“This is a mistake from my side, and same as the one I did in Monaco. So I just need to reset, and try not to repeat the same mistake. Obviously, this was first time that happened to me, something like this. And definitely for next time, I will know better how to react.”
“In the constructors’, it’s very important to bring points. And today I just threw points away, and especially because such a close fight with Ferrari.
“So it’s important to really reset and come back stronger in Silverstone. I did it already after the triple header. So definitely, that’s the goal, and there’s no reason why I wouldn’t come back stronger for next weekend.”
Adam Cooper F1 