Mercedes concedes that it may have been better not to give rising star Andrea Kimi Antonelli his first F1 weekend run at his home venue
Mercedes has admitted that it did not get it right in realising the pressures that Andrea Kimi Antonelli would face with his first FP1 outing on home ground at Monza.
The German manufacturer elected to hand Antonelli his first official practice run in its car at the Italian Grand Prix, on the same weekend that he was going to be announced as a 2025 driver.
But despite showing some impressive speed straight out of the pits, it all went wrong for Antonelli just 10 minutes into the session as he crashed out at Parabolica after pushing too hard too soon.
Reflecting on the events of that day, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff thinks it was not an error to give Antonelli his first run at Monza under such circumstances, but reckons it would have been wiser in hindsight to have let him run somewhere else first.
“I wouldn’t say it was a mistake, but I think we weren’t completely right in assessing the pressures that he could find himself under,” Wolff told Motorsport.com.
“Why that is, is that we talked about it, and how to approach the session. He has been brilliant in testing. He has never put a single foot wrong in the many thousands of kilometres that he’s done.
“But it’s a different ball game if you’re an Italian driver, you’re 18 years old in Monza and it’s your first opportunity.
“Maybe if we had considered that as a risk factor against the set of data we had from him, probably it would have been wise to give him an FP1 that would have been in a totally different time zone than Italy. But he will learn a lot from that.”
While Antonelli’s crash was not ideal in terms of causing damage to George Russell’s car, Wolff admitted that one of his other concerns was the emotional impact that the error would have on the young Italian on a weekend when he was under the spotlight.
“I thought it’s not good for him, because I thought it’s a shame for him,” added Wolff. “He was so quick, and that was his first session in Italy, about to be announced as a driver, which everybody pre-empted.
“I like his approach. He’s fast on the first lap out of the pits, and that is what he’s demonstrated. Obviously, I would have enjoyed him being on the leaderboard high up and that was taken away because the car flew – and some of those speeds were only achieved much later during the weekend.
“Obviously he was too fast for the condition of the track and for the car at that stage, so it was balancing the ambition, the motivation and the skill versus also the experience that FP1 is FP1.
“I knew that that was going to hurt him, that was going to hurt him emotionally.”
No gamble
Mercedes is aware that for all of Antonelli’s talent and potential, he lacks experience – and that means there will likely be more crashes to come.
But Wolff thinks that developing him within the environment at Brackley is the right approach to help get the most out of him.
“I think that the F1 team that you join as a young driver is fundamental for your performance and for your development,” he said.
“That’s why we decided also to bring him straight into Mercedes, so he would be less polluted with another, different modus operandi.
“I’m not saying it’s worse or better. But I think we want to have it the Mercedes way with him, which means also investing in this kind of mistakes that happen. So certainly we know of the responsibility that we have for his development and also for his results.”
Asked if he considered Mercedes has taken a gamble on promoting Antonelli at this stage, Wolff said: “No, it’s not a gamble. It would be a gamble if you wouldn’t believe in his capability.
“We need to give him the time to develop. We don’t expect, touching down in Australia [next year], and him blasting everyone. That’s not the expectation.
“I think it shouldn’t be anybody’s expectations. Give him time to develop, and then he can become very good. But he needs to be given the time.”
