“I stayed very much within the limit,” claims Antonelli after taking over Hamilton’s car in FP1

Having completed his second outing during an F1 race weekend, Lewis Hamilton’s 2025 replacement Andrea Kimi Antonelli has acknowledged that he “stayed very much within the limit” after his disastrous Monza practice earlier at the Italian Grand Prix.

Mercedes had an impressive start to their day, with George Russell topping the timesheets in the opening practice session at Mexico City. His team-mate Lewis Hamilton sat out FP1 as his 2025 replacement Andrea Kimi Antonelli got behind the wheel of his W15 as part of a rule that requires each team to run a rookie driver in at least two FP1 during the season.

However, the second practice saw Russell lose control of his car over the kerbs, crashing into the barriers. He managed to do a serious amount of damage to his car, but fortunately was released swiftly from the Medical Centre.

His team-mate Lewis Hamilton sat out the opening practice as his 2025 replacement Andrea Kimi Antonelli took over his car in FP1. The seven-time world champion returned to action in the extended second practice, ending the 90-minute session in P7, over half a second adrift of the pace-setting Ferrari of Carlos Sainz.

Assessing his day in Mexico, Hamilton praised Antonelli for not putting a foot wrong after his troublesome debut run back in Monza while he also claimed that the special run plan dictated by tyre supplier Pirelli made things quite difficult as drivers were unable to make any tweaks to the car.

Reflecting on his second outing during an F1 race weekend, Antonelli insisted that he managed to collect a wealth of data and experience during the one-hour practice, and intends to continue his preparation with older F1 Mercedes cars.

“I wanted to deliver a clean FP1 session for the team today and I was pleased that I was able to do that. It was my first time driving the circuit here, so I stayed very much within the limit and just built my confidence lap-by-lap.

“Overall, it was a decent hour, and, despite the red flags, we gathered lots of data that will hopefully help the team over the rest of the weekend.

“I was also able to build my understanding of the W15 too. We ran both the Hard and Soft compound and it was good to get a mixture of consecutive running and single lap work completed.

“Whilst there aren’t any more FP1 sessions for me to take part in this year, I’m looking forward to continuing my programme with previous cars as we build towards 2025.”

Commenting on Mercedes’ opening day in Mexico City, Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin sounded a positive voice, claiming that the W15 felt competitive throughout the day.

“FP1 ran smoothly with Kimi doing a solid job as he stepped in for his second rookie session, this time alongside George. We had a busy programme to get through and, despite the interruption of two red flags, were able to complete the majority of it.

“George meanwhile hit the ground running and felt particularly comfortable on the Soft tyre, topping the times at the end of the hour. With the mandated Pirelli tyre test for FP2, we knew how important getting good FP1 running would be.

“That became even more true as George was unfortunate to lose the car at turn eight early in the extended FP2 session. It was a hefty shunt; fortunately, he was OK but the car fared less well.

“It has given us a decent amount of work to do to get the car ready for FP3 and we are already working through that. Lewis enjoyed a happier session and was comfortable with the car, although a bit frustrated that the tyre test meant he had no opportunity to work on the setup,” Shovlin concluded.