Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes a mix of pressure and expectation could explain why Andrea Kimi Antonelli crashed out just five laps into his Formula 1 debut at the Italian Grand Prix.
Antonelli was running in place of George Russell in FP1 at Monza to gain his first experience behind the wheel in an F1 weekend, having initially set the fastest time of the session, he spun off at the final corner and hit the wall with only 10 minutes on the clock.
With the highly rated 18-year-old expected as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement at Mercedes next season, it was not the debut the Italian would have wanted, having minimal running before his shunt brought out the red flag in front of his home fans.
After swearing and apologising over the team radio, Wolff consoled Antonelli, replying: “Kimi all good, all good Kimi.”
Wolff later explained why the circumstances could have worked against Antonelli, who walked away from the 45g crash and underwent tests at the medical centre.
“It is the team that takes the decision whether to hire a driver or not and who to put in FP1 or not and we are running fully conscious into this driver decision, fully conscious of what can happen, what to expect and managing the expectations,” said Wolff.
“Clearly here, with everything piling up on him in Monza, that is very difficult to cope with. Is that the reason why he put it in the wall? Maybe.
“I think the circumstances are guilty…you are under the magnifying glass because it all happens in Monza, it has been a while since an Italian driver was in a top team, this can be a lot for an 18-year-old.
“For him, it feels certainly terrible, but it is part of the development curve. What we see is there is performance, and we have even seen that in the few laps we have seen but what he did, the car couldn’t take.”
Wolff has backed Antonelli to bounce back after crashing just 10 minutes into the session and revealed the plan is to have him behind the wheel for FP1 in Mexico.
“I think a strong driver needs to recover from these things, cope with the pressure but obviously this weekend wasn’t easy for him; you still need to compete in F2, you have all these shenanigans around you in Monza, an Italian kid that is being hyped, first time in a Mercedes car.
“That must be a heavy burden but if he wants to be a champion one day he needs to cope with that and I’ve no doubt that he can and he will.”
One thing that is clear is that Antonelli, even with such limited running, managed to show Wolff just what he could bring to the team.
“It is unfortunate, having an hour to run we would have seen some good performances but that is what we have always said, he is a rookie, he is very young, and we are prepared to invest in his future.
“These moments will happen; they will continue to happen next year but there will also be a lot of highlights. We rather have a problem in slowing him down rather than making him faster, what we have seen in one and a half laps is just astonishing.
“Most importantly he is OK because the crash was 45g so that is important. The second priority is to get the car ready for George so the programme doesn’t suffer too much, it may run a little bit late.
“He apologised, first of all, and that is what you need to do when you bring a car back that is a little bit like a Lego box falling on the floor, but he said he felt so much confidence in the car.
“I guess he was just bitten, everyone suffered from the temperature, especially rear temperatures around Ascari at these kinds of speeds – that is why the rear stepped out."
