Mercedes System 1 staff principal Toto Wolff couldn’t have coped with Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s strain as a 19-year-old, explaining he was “a little bit of an fool” at that age.
Antonelli turned F1’s third-youngest driver in historical past this season at 18 years outdated due to his single-seater prowess – 4 titles in System 4 and System Regional. He additionally was the primary F1 debutant in a prime staff since Lewis Hamilton at McLaren and Heikki Kovalainen at Renault in 2007.
Antonelli had proven indicators of being affected by strain in a house outing at Monza final 12 months, crashing out of FP1 on his first push lap, and struggled once more beneath the burden of expectations in 2025 – with waves of social media abuse compounding his points.
Nonetheless, Mercedes chiefs have enthused concerning the Italian teenager’s skilled angle relative to his age.
“I’d say it is nearly been a recreation of three thirds,” Mercedes Excessive Efficiency Powertrains managing director Hywel Thomas instructed the Past The Grid podcast about Antonelli’s maiden season, after the rookie got here seventh within the 2025 drivers’ championship.
“As a result of he got here into the staff, and naturally in these early races you are like, ‘Wow, that is unimaginable, that this man with such little expertise is admittedly placing it on the market’. Then he had his blip and the outcomes weren’t there. And now he is come again tremendous sturdy. Actually spectacular.
“And to suppose, you already know, he is the age that he’s and he is coping with all of it. And he is very, very clever. He offers with individuals actually, very well, and [he’s] very, very mature. Now, I’ve acquired youngsters his age they usually’re not that mature, I can inform you that for nothing, they would not like to listen to that, however they are not.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Mercedes
Photograph by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Pictures by way of Getty Pictures
Wolff concurred: “The factor is that once we converse with Kimi, we’re brutally sincere when it is good and when it is unhealthy. And then you definately remind your self that you simply’re not sitting reverse an grownup. Kimi’s extra child than an grownup.
“And you need to remind your self that he is simply 19. Sure, he is a professional within the automotive and he is been karting all his life and racing all his life. However from the maturity, we’re anticipating an acceleration of development that’s nearly too troublesome. He is been thrown into this, and I believe once you have a look at a few of the worse races, it is simply overwhelming the expertise that he is making with all the curiosity, the media strain – they’re writing you up and down.
“You may have a particularly fast and skilled team-mate [George Russell] and he is nonetheless coping. And I believe that reveals that he has nice potential for the long run, as a result of like Hywel says, after I was 19, I used to be a little bit of an fool. I would not have been ready to deal with the pressures that he’s. And that is why, after I discuss to him, I am a little bit bit harsh with him, I have to nearly take myself again and say, ‘Maintain on a minute, you already know, he is a child’. And that is fairly an attention-grabbing studying for us additionally.”
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