Andrea Kimi Antonelli may lack experience in Formula 1 – the teenager in his first season in the series and under the Mercedes microscope – but if he is concerned about a run of grands prix that has seemingly set him back, he has the right mentor and team principal in Toto Wolff to help him rediscover his touch.
Wolff has, more than once, admitted it was a risk to sign the 18-year-old to fill the cockpit left empty by a seven-time world champion, following Lewis Hamilton’s switch to Ferrari.
Such a decision was always going to lead to peaks and troughs in performance as Antonelli adapts to life in F1; the increase in media interest, new circuits, a race-winning team-mate and the pressure of learning on the job in front of millions watching.
Things started well for Antonelli, a fine fourth-place finish on his debut at a wet/dry Australian Grand Prix not only demonstrated his pace but also his ability to deal with difficult driving conditions – the Italian then backed that up with points in China (in both the sprint and the grand prix), Japan (where he again shone) and Saudi Arabia – with an 11th in Bahrain his only non-points scoring race in the opening five rounds.
Then came Miami and the first true success, taking sprint pole as he again showed just what he could – one day – be capable of achieving on a regular basis. The result might not have gone as he would have hoped, with seventh in the ensuing sprint race and then sixth in the grand prix, but it was still a positive weekend overall.
Fast-forward slightly to Canada, a landmark moment in the debut F1 season for Antonelli as he became the third-youngest driver to stand on a Formula 1 podium having finished behind team-mate George Russell and reigning champion Max Verstappen in Montreal.
However, the elation of Canada now stands out as going against the grain of recent results, the one peak from a trough which has left Antonelli frustrated.
“It seems like everything is going wrong at the moment and it's hard to find some positives,” Antonelli said after being forced to retire from the British Grand Prix having had the majority of his diffuser shunted off by Isack Hadjar.
“I'm not super happy to be honest, too many zeroes scored. [Since] Canada I've been trying, I've been struggling to find some positives to be honest. It feels like nothing is really working on our way and just need to focus and reset and try to find again the light at the end of the tunnel because definitely I'm not going through a nice moment.”
Time then, for Wolff to plot how to reinvigorate his precocious rookie, especially at a time when upgrades for Ferrari have helped the Scuderia find performance and when rumours continue to fly that Mercedes is keen to bring in Verstappen from 2026 onwards.
After admitting he had over-stretched himself to accommodate friends and family before retiring due to a throttle issue at his home grand prix in Imola, Antonelli then crashed out of qualifying in Monaco to compromise his race – eventually and frustratingly finishing 18th.
More reliability issues struck in Barcelona, where oil pressure loss saw Antonelli register another DNF – then came the respite of Canada, only for a first-lap crash into Verstappen in Austria to again bring the mood down.
At Silverstone, having been hit with a three-place grid penalty for causing the collision with Verstappen, poor strategy calls left Antonelli chasing his tail before the accident with Hadjar.
“It's been a rough run since Montreal. Two races that were really sub-par and everybody feels that way in the team,” said Wolff following the British Grand Prix.
“And for Kimi also. I think as a team we need to go back to a baseline. He's a great driver; there's a reason why we took him. And as a team we know what we're able to achieve and reconcile, reset properly and then take it from there. There's two more races to go and try to bounce back (before the summer break).
“Even until today I am OK with what happened. The first stop was a strategy blunder. We should have not brought him in. To be fair enough, he can't really say that's wrong, because of his lack of experience. So he was put in an impossible position.
“Then he had the shunt with Hadjar and that was basically it. It's just important now to keep him in a good frame of mind and not make him suffer or blame himself too much.
“I'm not sure he's trying too hard. I think he wants to do well. And obviously there's a ton of information that's coming down on him. And his way of trying to extract the best from the car and I think saying, ‘OK, I know I can drive – what is it I need to do for that to come back?’ The whole work for us as a team and for the drivers is simplification. We are overthinking.”
