Mercedes misjudged Monza pressure on Antonelli on FP1 debut
Mercedes has conceded that handing young Italian rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli his F1 practice debut at Monza last month may not have been the best decision, given the immense pressure he faced on home soil.
Antonelli, who will race for Mercedes next season alongside George Russell, enjoyed his first official run in F1 at the Italian Grand Prix.
While the 18-year-old showed impressive speed right out of the gate, his debut was cut short after a crash at Parabolica just 10 minutes into the session.
Reflecting on the incident, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff acknowledged that while the decision to give Antonelli his first run at Monza wasn't necessarily a mistake, they might have underestimated the emotional intensity of the occasion for the young Italian.
"I wouldn't say it was a mistake, but I think we weren't completely right in assessing the pressures that he could find himself under," Wolff told Motorsport.com.
"Why that is, is that we talked about it, and how to approach the session. He has been brilliant in testing. He has never put a single foot wrong in the many thousands of kilometres that he's done.
"But it's a different ball game if you're an Italian driver, you're 18 years old in Monza and it's your first opportunity.”
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In hindsight, Wolff admitted that placing Antonelli in a less high-pressure environment might have been the better move.
"Maybe if we had considered that as a risk factor against the set of data we had from him, probably it would have been wise to give him an FP1 that would have been in a totally different time zone than Italy. But he will learn a lot from that,” he said.
©Mercedes
Beyond the physical damage to George Russell's car, Wolff expressed concern about the emotional toll the crash may have taken on Antonelli.
"I thought it's not good for him, because I thought it's a shame for him," he added. "He was so quick, and that was his first session in Italy, about to be announced as a driver, which everybody pre-empted.
"I like his approach. He's fast on the first lap out of the pits, and that is what he's demonstrated.
But the Mercedes chief acknowledged that the crash was a result of the young driver's eagerness to push beyond what the track conditions and the car could handle at that moment.
“Obviously, I would have enjoyed him being on the leaderboard high up and that was taken away because the car flew - and some of those speeds were only achieved much later during the weekend.
"Obviously he was too fast for the condition of the track and for the car at that stage, so it was balancing the ambition, the motivation and the skill versus also the experience that FP1 is FP1.
"I knew that that was going to hurt him, that was going to hurt him emotionally."
However, Wolff is confident that nurturing him within the Mercedes environment is the right strategy.
"I think that the F1 team that you join as a young driver is fundamental for your performance and for your development," he commented.
"That's why we decided also to bring him straight into Mercedes, so he would be less polluted with another, different modus operandi.
"I'm not saying it's worse or better. But I think we want to have it the Mercedes way with him, which means also investing in this kind of mistakes that happen. So certainly we know of the responsibility that we have for his development and also for his results."
©Mercedes
For many, Antonelli, for all his talent and natural ability, is still seen as a high-risk gamble for a front-running team like Mercedes. But Wolff dismissed such a notion.
"No, it's not a gamble. It would be a gamble if you wouldn't believe in his capability,” he argued.
"We need to give him the time to develop. We don't expect, touching down in Australia [next year], and him blasting everyone. That's not the expectation.
"I think it shouldn't be anybody's expectations. Give him time to develop, and then he can become very good. But he needs to be given the time."
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