Andrea Kimi Antonelli is undoubtedly one of the most exciting talents that will enter Formula 1 next season, but he faces a difficult debut at Mercedes.
After Kimi Antonelli crashed 10 minutes into his FP1 debut at Monza, the 18-year-old experienced first-hand how things can change in the highly pressurised world of F1.
Antonelli was taking over from George Russell in the session and caused significant damage to the W15, which impacted Mercedes’ run plan for the rest of the day.
Russell missed nearly 30 minutes of FP2 while the team continued with repairs, while the team was cut short on the amount of spares they had for the new specification parts.
During the drivers’ press conference over the weekend, Russell made a ‘bit of dig’ at Antonelli over the crash according to journalist Alex Kalinauckas when speaking on the Flat Chat podcast.
George Russell blames Andrea Kimi Antonelli for lack of spare parts
F1 teams are quite limited in the amount of parts they are able to produce in a season due to the cost cap, while crash damage is also included in that calculation.
Drivers have lost their seats before due to crashing too often, including Mick Schumacher and most recently Logan Sargeant at Williams. Russell made a subtle hint that Mercedes might have to get used to these setbacks in the early stages of Kimi Antonelli’s career.
“Mercedes is in for a real challenging year next year where Antonelli is absolutely rapid, but he crashes a lot. I could totally see it,” said Kalinauckas.
“I interpreted it as a little bit of a dig maybe from George where in the press conference after qualifying he said ‘Yeah, I was on the back foot from the shunt that Antonelli had in my car in FP1. And we’re all right on the edge now when it comes to available spare parts of their new updates.’
“They’re limited in what they can do in the cost cap and they can’t really afford to have a driver constantly crashing a car. Mick Schumacher’s career ended because of that.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli earns praise from Mercedes chiefs
Despite crashing just hours before Mercedes announced he would be driving for them alongside Russell for 2025, Mercedes chiefs were full of praise for Antonelli.
Chief communications officer Bradley Lord said it was ‘good to see’ Antonelli was on the pace as soon as he rolled out of the garage, having been told to ‘enjoy’ the practice run.
READ MORE: Who is Mercedes academy driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli? Everything to know
Martin Brundle believes Antonelli is the ‘luckiest driver ever’ after crashing and still receiving praise from his team for how fast he was before the incident.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff reportedly fancies the ‘risk’ with Antonelli despite having Carlos Sainz available to him on the driver market, having missed out on signing Max Verstappen early in his career.
