Photo: Stephen Reuss / Mercedes
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admits that it might have been wiser not to give rising star Andrea Kimi Antonelli his F1 debut at his home circuit.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli made his F1 debut at this year’s Italian Grand Prix, when he stepped in for George Russell during first free practice at Monza to meet the rookie requirement, which says that every F1 driver must skip an FP1 session during a season for somebody who has no more than two grand prix starts.
However, despite a good-looking start to the session, Antonelli crashed at Parabolica while pushing the limits of the corner and damaged Russell’s W15, which later complicated his run in the second practice session.
Nevertheless, the following day, Mercedes officially confirmed Antonelli as Lewis Hamilton’s successor for 2025 as rumoured for a long time.
Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff has previously acknowledged that the young Italian was his first choice for the seat after Hamilton announced his decision to join Ferrari. However, the team chose to wait until the rookie’s home race weekend to make the announcement.
Now, Wolff would approach things differently as he believes Mercedes underestimated the pressure placed on Antonelli by giving him his F1 debut at his home Grand Prix.
"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."
When Antonelli steps into his full-time F1 seat in 2025, he will not only be the first Italian to race in the series since Antonio Giovinazzi in 2021 but will also face the added pressure of being one of the youngest drivers in the sport’s history.
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