Andrea Kimi Antonelli has been subject to recent scrutiny in his debut Formula 1 season – but impressed at last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix after starting and finishing fourth.
The Italian teenager was one of the few drivers to break out of a DRS lockstep after wrong-footing Liam Lawson to claim fourth following their respective pitstops. He subsequently chased after Carlos Sainz in the latter stages of the race, although found the Williams’ dirty air too much of a repulsive force.
This appears, at least for now, to have put the brakes on Antonelli’s difficult run in recent rounds. Following an array of retirements – mostly mechanical – and difficult qualifying sessions, it had been tough for Antonelli to build any kind of momentum. This led to Mercedes CEO Toto Wolff labelling the Bolognese’s Monza race as “underwhelming”.
Mercedes has been attempting to steer Antonelli through his rough patch, although simulator issues hurt his preparation for Zandvoort as he returned from the summer break. Since then, those issues have been ironed out – allowing Antonelli the chance to spend some days turning virtual laps at Mercedes HQ to recalibrate.
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin revealed the process that Mercedes had gone through to ensure it could support its young prospect adequately.
“With Zandvoort, he came in for a simulator session and we had some issues that meant he wasn’t really able to do the prep there,” Shovlin explained during the Baku weekend. “He then made a mistake in FP1 – well, I think we need to own a bit of that responsibility in that we couldn’t do the normal prep.
“He was with us [before the Azerbaijan GP] and did a very big day, doing two or three race distances or equivalent mileage of that preparing here.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Clive Rose / Getty Images
“He’s shown us enough in the early part of the season to confirm our expectations that he had the talent to be in F1 and be with Mercedes.
“But there’s no doubt that after a string of poor performances and not scoring at the rate that George is, the pressure builds. And we’ve just got to help him manage that pressure.
“We did a lot of development driving with Kimi. There might be a bit where it’s hard to know where the problems will come. Will it be a problem on a race start? Will it be a mistake in qualifying that puts you under pressure? Will it be losing a free practice session because you went off the track? You can’t really predict those.
“We’re always working with him. We’ve upped the amount of preparation that we’re doing recently. We’re trying different things in terms of getting ready for the race weekends, going into these remaining races and we’ll just keep reviewing until we get it right.”
Shovlin also discussed Mercedes’ reversion to its early-spec rear suspension, and the effect on Antonelli’s driving. He explained that the Imola-spec suspension, which is understood to have been Mercedes’ response to the ‘anti-lift’ trend, did prove to be a difficult package for both drivers to master.
Mercedes found its first race with the suspension in Imola inconclusive, rolled back to the previous spec for Monaco and Spain, before reintroducing it in Montreal. The team scored a 1-3 result with it, which rather obscured the issues it would later show further down the road.
“We’re confident that [the new rear suspension] was making the car difficult to drive,” Shovlin added. “And it was adding performance at very specific circuits like Montreal. But it was causing more problems than it solved at tracks like Austria and Silverstone.
George Russell, Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images via Getty Images
“So that’s definitely something that will have helped both drivers. It was certainly confusing for Kimi, and as a young driver it’s difficult.
“But in terms of summing it up, if we looked at the opening races, he amassed almost all of his points in that first part of the season.
“And he was performing in many ways better than we expected. You always know when you’re bringing a driver into F1 this rapidly, that there’s going to be bumps in the road. And over the course of the European season, he was finding it harder to qualify well.
“But for us, you can still look at the first part of the season; we’re not talking about one race that he fluked. We’re talking about some strong qualifying performances, some extremely strong race performances, very good handling of a wet race in Melbourne to finish fourth.
“And we just need to work with him to try and get back to that level of comfort that he had in the car.”
Additional reporting by Oleg Karpov and Ronald Vording
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