Mercedes-Youngster Kimi Antonelli initially silenced his biggest critics: the 18-year-old Italian drove to a strong fourth place at Azerbaijan’s Grand Prix and thus showed one of the best performances in his debut season so far.
Antonelli was even one of the few drivers in the field who were able to free themselves from the DRS train and shake off the pursuers. After the pit stops, he prevailed against Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) and recorded the persecution of Carlos Sainz, but ultimately no longer passed the Williams driver.
Nevertheless, the result for the Formula 1 rookie was an urgently needed sense of achievement. Most recently, he had to deal with several, mostly technical failures and weak qualifying. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff even described his achievements in Monza as “disappointing”.
Problems with simulator brake Antonelli
However, there were also difficulties in preparing: A problem with the simulator had affected his work after the summer break for Zandvoort. In the meantime, these difficulties have been resolved, so that Antonelli recently spent several days in the simulator.
“He came to a simulator meeting for Zandvoort, but we had problems that meant that he couldn’t really prepare there,” admits Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ senior engineer on the race track. “Then he made a mistake in the first training session.”
“I think we have to take on a piece of responsibility because we couldn’t do the normal preparation,” admits the engineer. “He was with us in front of the Azerbaijan GP and completed a very long day, two to three racing distances or the corresponding workload on kilometers to prepare here.”
Mercedes: Antonelli has the talent for Formula 1
“He showed us enough early in the season to confirm our expectation that he has the talent to be in Formula 1 and drive at Mercedes.” However, the pressure has increased noticeably after a few weaker races, says Shovlin.
“It is clear that after a series of weak results and in view of the fact that he doesn’t score like George [Russell]the pressure grows. And we just have to help him deal with this pressure. “That is why Mercedes recently increased the intensity of the preparations.
“We are constantly working with him,” emphasizes Shovlin. “We have recently intensified the preparation. We try different things to better tackle the race weekends and will simply check it until we can do it properly.”
Mercedes-Youngster drives with old rear axles
Another factor was the return to the original rear axle, according to Mercedes. Because the variant introduced in Imola, a reaction to the “anti-lift” trend, has proven to be a disadvantage: “We are convinced that [die neue Hinterradaufhängung] The car made the car more difficult to drive, “explains Shovlin.
“Although it brought about very special routes such as Montreal performance, it caused more problems than she solved, for example in Austria or Silverstone. That definitely helped both drivers. In any case, it was confusing for Kimi, and as a young driver it is difficult.”
Despite this difficult phase, Mercedes emphasizes that Antonelli has already proven to have the necessary potential. “When we look at the first races, he got almost all of his points this season phase. And he did better in many ways than we expected.”
Previous results were no random results
“If you bring a driver to Formula 1 so quickly, it is clear that there will be setbacks,” says the Mercedes engineer, who emphasizes that not everything can always run perfectly. “It was more difficult for him to qualify well over the European season section.”
“But the start of the season still counts for us,” reminds Shovlin: “We do not speak of a random result, but of strong qualifying, very strong races and very good handling in the rain of Melbourne, which brought him fourth place.”