Peter Windsor identifies ‘concerning’ Kimi Antonelli driving trait after Monaco Grand Prix qualifying crash

It has been a tough triple header for Andrea Kimi Antonelli, having retired from his home race at Imola with a power unit issue and suffered a crash in Monaco.

The 18-year-old Italian was on course to progress further into qualifying before making a mistake at the Nouvelle chicane in Q1, tagging the barrier on entry and damaging the front-left corner of his Mercedes.

The impact sent him into the adjacent barrier and caused further damage to the nose section of his Mercedes, effectively putting him out and down in P15 on the grid.

Qualifying is more important at Monaco than at any other track, but the team found out on race day when neither Antonelli nor George Russell could break into the top ten places, with Jacques Villeneuve branding Mercedes ’embarrassing’ after the race.

Analysing his weekend on the Cameron CC podcast, Peter Windsor noticed something ‘concerning’ about Antonelli’s crash that he picked up last year.

Peter Windsor thinks Kimi Antonelli’s Monaco crash is ‘concerning’

Antonelli’s first time in an F1 car on an official weekend was cut short when he crashed just 10 minutes into practice at Monza, after he effectively lost the rear midway through the high-speed right-hander of Parabolica.

Windsor noticed that he lost control at the apex of the corner, and a similar scenario happened at Monaco over the weekend.

“Antonelli had two shunts involving apexes rather than exits. Which is a bit concerning and underlining what I’ve been saying about him on fast corners,” said Windsor.

“I know one was a chicane and a function of the pressure of qualifying, but what a miserable weekend for Mercedes.”

READ MORE: Know all about 2025 Mercedes F1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli including stats

Mercedes could be dealing with ‘serious reliability problem’ after Monaco and Imola retirements

Mercedes power units were responsible for three retirements in the last couple of races, with Fernando Alonso still pointless in 2025 after his engine failed midway through the race in Monaco.

Failures are not uncommon in F1, but they normally happen towards the end of the season when teams are close to using up all of their allocated power unit components, and many reach their shelf life.

Eight races into the 24-race calendar, Mercedes could have a reliability problem after it was noted that the team may have a fault that only occurs when the ride height is lowered.

Such a problem would put Mercedes in the same boat as Ferrari, after they were also impacted by ride heights after their double disqualification in the Chinese GP.