Kimi Antonelli compared to Oscar Piastri as Davide Valsecchi tells F1 fans why they must lower their expectations

Andrea Kimi Antonelli had his most frustrating race of his short Formula 1 career at the Bahrain Grand Prix, but he still outperformed many people’s expectations.

Only Lewis Hamilton and Jackie Stewart had secured top-six finishes in their first three Grand Prix starts before Kimi Antonelli came along.

The Mercedes youngster made up 12 places in Australia to finish fourth in horrendous conditions that caught out four other rookies on the grid.

Antonelli’s performance at the Japanese Grand Prix was record-breaking, taking two of Max Verstappen’s accomplishments from his early days of Formula 1 off him.

Mercedes missed out on Verstappen as a teenager and weren’t prepared to potentially miss out on a generational talent again when the opportunity arose to promote Antonelli into Hamilton’s race seat.

There are rumours that Verstappen is on Mercedes’ radar again, but Antonelli is doing everything possible to convince team principal Toto Wolff that he should stick with his current driver line-up.

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Davide Valsecchi full of praise for Kimi Antonelli’s debut Mercedes F1 season

Formula 2 champion and pundit Davide Valsecchi was speaking on the F1 Nation Podcast about the 18-year-old Italian.

Valsecchi was asked how well Antonelli has started the season at Mercedes and explained: “He’s done very well. Also, because it was difficult, difficult conditions for him.

“He’s so young to be thrown immediately in the top team, just after Hamilton, well done to Toto Wolff, he was right. No mistake at all during the season.

“I like how calm he is. I like how quick he is because his speed cannot be underestimated.

“Yesterday [in qualifying], he was close to Russell, who’s doing a mega job. In two out of the four races that we had this year, in the last few laps of the races, he was catching Russell. In Japan and Australia, with wet conditions.

“I’m happy that Dr Wolff took this huge risk to put a rookie in a Formula 1 top team.”

Mercedes considered signing Carlos Sainz when he became a free agent, and several drivers elsewhere on the grid would have been interested in Hamilton’s vacant seat.

However, Antonelli has shown glimpses of the potential that have made Mercedes so excited about it, and it doesn’t feel like he’s far away from his first podium finish, and potentially even a Grand Prix victory.

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Oscar Piastri named as the Kimi Antonelli rival who’s the ‘next new thing’ in Formula 1

Although Valsecchi is really excited about his fellow Italian, he doesn’t want people to get ahead of themselves when analysing the teenager.

Instead, he admitted that Oscar Piastri is now showing his immense talent this season, and is very unlucky not to be leading the drivers’ championship.

Piastri now appears to have an edge of Lando Norris, and explaining the pressure put on young drivers in Formula 1, Valsecchi said: “I don’t know, I don’t want to rush too much because I know that the young drivers, when they come into Formula 1, sometimes they have an approach where they crack everything and they look like champions.

“And sometimes they have this period where they suffer a bit in this situation.

“Lawson, besides Tsunoda last year, was impressive, the six races that he did.

“And this year, besides Verstappen, he was no one. He lost his place at Red Bull, and now he looks just average in Racing Bulls.

“So, I think about Colapinto after the three races in the newspaper, it was written that he was the new teammate of Verstappen, and then he crashed everything, and he was no one.

“This up and down, I don’t want to have it with our new Italian star. Keep it cool. He’s a young, good driver.

“I think he’ll be in the next new thing, but let’s leave this place about the next big thing to Piastri, who is closer to reaching it, while Antonelli is only a young kid.”