Covering over 9,000 kilometres as he prepared for his debut F1 campaign, Juan Pablo Montoya says he heard Kimi Antonelli crashed a “lot” during his TPC programme, causing “a lot of damage”.

Antonelli joins the Formula 1 grid this season, the 18-year-old ‘wunderkind’ replacing seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton after he left the team for Ferrari.

Did Kimi Antonelli crash a lot in his TPC programme?

The Italian has already been out on track in two Formula 1 sessions as he climbed into the cockpit of the Mercedes W15 to cover the team’s two young driver practice sessions during the F1 2024 season.

His debut run though, didn’t go to plan.

In action at Monza, Antonelli went purple on his very first flying lap and was up on that on his second only to lose the back end of the car through the Parabolica. He crashed, impact recorded at 52G, but declared it was “definitely a lesson learned for next time”.

But while he didn’t make the same mistake the next time he was in the car, FP1 for the Mexican Grand Prix, according to former F1 driver Montoya, Antonelli suffered “a lot” of crashes during his 9,000km-plus TPC training.

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It has the Colombian worried about how Antonelli is going to fare, especially in the early races of his Mercedes career.

“The question is, is Antonelli used to always wanting to win?” he asked the AS Colombia YouTube channel.

“And the rumours of what I’ve heard is that he has crashed a lot in tests, he has done a lot of damage. He has done a lot of [damage] because he wants to go too fast.

“Yes, he might lose his mind at the beginning of the year because he’s no longer racing against [his] team-mates. Suddenly, he had easy times before, but now he is going against someone who is better than what he has experienced before.”

That someone better is George Russell.

The three-time Grand Prix winner has stepped into the role of Mercedes’ lead driver with Montoya believing Antonelli should spend the season learning from Russell, not trying to beat him.

“The car is built exactly to what George wants and he is going to have a difficult time,” he continued.

“If he has the mentality of going out to stay behind George and learn from George and if out of 25 [24] races, in 10 he gets ahead of George, then it’s a good year.

“But, if he wants to go out to dominate George, maybe he will lose his head and the year will become complicated for him.”

Mercedes motorsport boss Toto Wolff previously touched on Antonelli’s TPC programme when he revealed to Auto Motor und Sport that the Italian had “completed around 9,000 kilometres in Formula 1 cars.”

He, however, went onto call Antonelli’s performances “good test results” in a warning to shareholders and Mercedes fans not to expect the 18-year-old to put his car on pole position or the podium on his debut.

“If you expect him to be on pole position in Melbourne, win the race and immediately compete for the championship, then the risk is high because that won’t happen,” he added.

“If we take the approach that the boy is 18 years old, very talented, but of course has to grow into it first and will make mistakes, then the risk is limited. That’s why we’re doing it. We see 2025 as a transition year and want to prepare him for 2026.”

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