Antonelli is better than his F1 results show

George Russell is leading his team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli in Formula 1’s points standings, qualifying results, and he is the only Mercedes driver to take a race win so far this season. However, the British driver says these stats don’t paint the full picture of Antonelli’s start in F1.

The Italian rookie filled the gap left by Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes this year after a strong junior career saw him triumph in Italian F4 and Formula Regional, and pick up F2 race wins in his first season, having skipped F3 entirely.

However, his F1 start hasn’t been quite so smooth. Despite taking his first podium in Canada and picking up strong points in the opening rounds, Antonelli has been fighting to make the top 10 in recent races and has been outclassed by his more experienced team-mate.  

But Russell says the Italian’s results don’t accurately illustrate Antonelli’s progress in F1. While the youngster’s qualifying and race results have fallen below expectations, Russell argues that he is still improving with every passing race. 

“The fact is, his pace delta, to me, is no different, I think,” Russell told Autosport.”In Canada, I was on pole and he qualified fourth, but he was six tenths behind me. In Belgium, he was out in Q1 and I made it to Q3 – but he was only three tenths off me. 

“So, people look at the underlying result, but the truth is, he’s still making progress, even though we, as a team, have gone backwards. Suddenly, you’re now in the fight where a tenth can be six or seven grid spots. Before, for the positions we were fighting for, a tenth is one position.” 

Antonelli’s fight to catch Russell has come while Mercedes faces troubles with its W16, which has proven to be a handful on some circuits. In an attempt to rectify handling issues that were impacting the W16’s performance, Mercedes rolled out a new suspension package for the European races. 

However, the result wasn’t quite as the team predicted. 

“Upgrades are here to bring performance,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said after the team finished third and tenth in the Hungarian Grand Prix.  

“There’s a lot of simulations and analysis that goes into putting parts in the car, and then they’re just utterly wrong.”

The team realised its updates were wrong after running the new components at four grands prix, including in Canada, and the Silver Arrows squad soon decided to take the new suspension off the car. Modifying parts and tweaking the car week-in, week-out in this manner further impacted Antonelli’s integration into F1.

“Since we moved to that suspension, apart from Canada, I’ve been struggling to drive the car and getting the confidence,” Antonelli said ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix. “Also, I didn’t adapt the best because I was always trying to keep my style and to drive the car the way I wanted, but it didn’t really work out.”

Russell admitted that the team had suffered from a “run of bad form” over the races leading up to F1’s summer break, but said he was hoping for a turnaround in fortunes now that his team is back on the right path.

“I hope we can get that back on track,” Russell added, before explaining how Antonelli’s arrival had impacted the team as a whole.

“There’s always pros and cons to every change that you make in any organisation. But I think the change was with Lewis. It’s good for him. It’s really good for us as a team. A fresh start. Sometimes you need to break that mould to find yourself back on track.”