Antonelli ‘underwhelming’ at Monza, says Wolff

Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team’s manager, calls Kimi Antonelli “underwhelming” at the Italian Grand Prix.

After receiving a black-and-white flag for persistent track limits violations and a five-second penalty and penalty point on his license for kicking off Williams driver Alex Albon, the 19-year-old finished ninth overall in the race.

He was off for the majority of the second practice session before recovering to pass just behind team leader George Russell.

In the drivers’ championship, Antonelli leads Albon by four points and is one point adrift of Russell, who leads by one point.

This weekend was underwhelming, Wolff declared. Unacceptable . You can’t expect to see the car in the gravel bed. The entire race was unfavorable.

Wolff has remained unwavering in his support for Antonelli, who he quickly replaced Lewis Hamilton with at the age of 18 in Formula 1 this year after moving to Ferrari.

Wolff effectively declared that both Russell and Antonelli would remain with the team for the upcoming season at the Dutch Grand Prix last weekend.

However, Antonelli had a difficult first season at F1.

In the middle of qualifying for the grand prix in Miami, he won the pole position in the sprint race in May.

After changing the rear suspension design for the Mercedes, Antonelli took home his first podium in Canada in June.

He claimed that despite Mercedes’ decision to go back to their previous suspension for the Hungarian Grand Prix two years ago, he still struggled with consistency.

After colliding with Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari in Zandvoort, Antonelli made an error, leading to yet another messed race in Monza, where he also spent six laps passing Pierre Gasly’s Alpine after his pit stop.

Wolff claimed that Antonelli needed a “clean weekend,” adding that carrying too much baggage from previous mistakes into the following session or the following weekend would be problematic.

If you’ve been off there before and your session is over, or perhaps you’re not attacking a driver who shouldn’t be in your way like Gasly because he had this encounter with Leclerc, you’re not going to attack the corner hard.

Kimi shouldn’t lose any time on Gasly, she says.