Wolff defends Kimi Antonelli after his bumpy debut: “What we saw in one and a half laps was amazing”

This Friday, the Italian Andrea Kimi Antonelli, a young driver from the Mercedes junior academy, only 18 years old and already labeled in Italy as “Hamilton’s replacement” or “the new Verstappen”, fulfilled the dream of a lifetime. The driver from Bologna made his debut in an F1 Grand Prix, competing in Free Practice 1 of the Italian GP, ​​​​​​​​​​​in front of his fans.

The script for the film seems to be written: an exciting premiere and subsequent announcement as an official Mercedes driver for 2025 to cover all the front pages of today’s newspapers, taking away all the fame from Ferrari in its own race. But then, the reality is very different.

The expected announcement did not come. And the debut started badly. 10 minutes after leaving the track, on his sixth lap at Monza, with the track very dirty and cold tires when leaving the pits, in his second attempt at a fast lap, the promising driver lost the car behind him in the fast Parabolica. from entering the goal and left against the wall. “I’m sorry,” he said over the radio, knowing he wrecked the car and it meant a lot of work for the mechanic, because Russell had to ride that car in Free Practice 2. And Toto Wolff, on the radio, calmed him down.

“Too confident,” said the driver in the pit, as MD learned, taking all the blame and apologizing to the mechanics for his rookie mistake.

And after that, there are many readings about it. The first, positive, is that the boy did not give up and went all out, putting himself in the best time at the beginning, without wanting to save. That shows a lot of personality, like a champion. The second, strange, that Mercedes didn’t ask him to start slowly and go from less to more.

The third is the question of whether Wolff is racing too much, something he has been planning for some time in the paddock.

There are many inexplicable why Toto did not take advantage of the fact that Carlos Sainz freely signed him for his speed and experience, because in 2025, with a tough World Cup in the future, Carlos is perfect to fight for wins and for. the Constructors’ World Cup. However, Toto prefers to wait for a Verstappen that has eluded him when he was young and seems never to come, and if not, create his own Verstappen with Kimi.

Antonelli won all the lower categories and took this course, at the age of 17, a big step by reaching F2 without going through F3. In the silver class, he made it clear that he still needs improvement and that another year would not be too bad for him. But Wolff doesn’t think so and doesn’t want to get away from him. For now, he remained positive and made it clear that what happened this Friday does not affect in any way his plans to take him to F1 or not next year.

“It has no effect, zero. I think the most important thing is to hire based on ability. And an FP1 that went wrong is not a reason to decide for or against the driver.“, he argued, revealing that the young transalpine could get back in the car in FP1 in Mexico, although he could also do it at the end of the year in Abu Dhabi and in the next tests.

Wolff and his reflection on Antonelli

“This is what we always say: he is a rookie, very young. We are ready to invest in your future. These moments will happen and They will repeat next year. But there will also be many highlights. Which What we found is that we have more trouble stopping it than speeding it up. Because what you see in a lap and a half is just amazing.”Wolff said.