Mercedes firm after Antonelli's Dutch weekend: 'We’ve been really clear all along'
Team representative Bradley Lord summed up Kimi Antonelli’s Zandvoort weekend, which culminated in a heavy crash that ended Charles Leclerc’s race in the Netherlands and heavily compromised his own.
Having put one of the toughest weekends of the season behind him, Kimi Antonelli must quickly move on from Zandvoort and focus on the upcoming Italian Grand Prix — his first home race in Formula 1, arriving with no small amount of pressure on his shoulders.
The young Italian driver came away with nothing last Sunday after a costly misjudgment in a duel with Charles Leclerc, which ended the Monegasque’s race and ultimately ruined his own, as he was handed not one but two penalties. The latter came from another mistake, by speeding in the pit lane.
Antonelli has thus drawn widespread criticism, including from Jacques Villeneuve, who described the clash with Leclerc at Zandvoort as a “Formula 4 move” and suggested that “F1 is too much for him.”
Lord sees positives in Antonelli's Dutch weekend
Summing up the Dutch weekend in the usual race debrief, Bradley Lord also focused on Kimi’s race: ''As people have done their mid-season evaluations, Kimi’s had a little bit of criticism and perhaps some suggestions that things aren’t working out.''
''We’ve been really clear all along that this is a learning year for him. It’s come very early. He’s still very young and very early in his career trajectory as well. So we know there will be mistakes, but what we’re looking for are the signs and the indications that he is learning, that he’s building his experience and building his capability as a Formula One driver too.''
Despite the weekend ending with a mistake and zero points, Lord was keen to highlight several positives, such as the strong pace Antonelli showed in the middle phase of the race: ''If you look at his race pace, you look at the improvement and the step he made in qualifying, notwithstanding a pretty troubled practice session.''
''There are lots of really good ingredients there. It didn’t all quite come together in Zandvoort with the penalties obviously for collision and pit lane speeding at the end of the race. And then obviously some incidents in practice.''
''But when we look at the pure underlying performance, we can see good progress and we can see that he’s got much more confidence in the car now that we’ve reverted on the rear suspension configuration.''
Finally, Lord concluded: ''We’re hopeful of seeing that confidence continue to build and Kimi’s performance continue to do the same over the races ahead.''
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