Wolff makes ‘impossible’ judgement following Antonelli F1 promotion

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff feels he would have faced an “impossible” job if Kimi Antonelli had shown himself lacking in one crucial area.

After months of speculation, one of F1’s worst-kept secrets was finally confirmed over the Italian Grand Prix weekend when Mercedes announced Antonelli would replace seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton next season.

The only downside for Mercedes and Antonelli was that less than 24 hours earlier, the 18-year-old Italian had crashed just minutes into his F1 debut, sliding off the track at Monza’s Parabolica and slamming side-on into a tyre barrier.

That had followed an extraordinary push lap from Antonelli as he outlined the pace and talent he naturally possesses, and resulted in Wolff opting to give him an opportunity at such a young age.

The incident also brought to mind Antonelli’s comments from a few weeks earlier when he suggested he was not ready for F1.

Asked for his thoughts on Antonelli’s remark, speaking to media, including RacingNews365, Wolff replied: “It’s good that you’re not overconfident, that you put yourself into question, that you ask yourself that important question.

“In the end, it’s the team that makes the decisions whether to hire a driver or not and who to put in FP1 or not.

“We are running fully conscious into these driver decisions, fully conscious of what can happen, what to expect and managing the expectations.”

Indicating Antonelli may have placed too much pressure on himself to perform, in particular in front of his home crowd and knowing he would be unveiled the following day, Wolff added: “Is that the reason why he put it [the car] in the wall? Maybe.

“I look at driving performance. I’d rather slow somebody down than make him fast because the second one is impossible.”

After blotting his copybook on his F1 bow, Antonelli can expect at least one more FP1 outing before the end of the season.

The first of those will be in Mexico City as a replacement for Hamilton. It is likely Antonelli will also take over Hamilton’s car ahead of what will be the Briton’s final grand prix for the team in Abu Dhabi.

Three of the remaining eight races are street circuits – Azerbaijan, Singapore and Las Vegas – so are not an option. A further three – Austin, São Paulo and Qatar – build into sprint races when Hamilton will need the sole practice session to get up to speed.

Confirming Mercedes’ plans for Antonelli for this year, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said: “Kimi, being our driver for next year, of course we’re going to use him.

“He obviously didn’t get as much mileage as we’d hoped for [in Monza]. We have been doing, and we are doing work with some of our previous cars, giving Kimi the opportunity to experience the car, the tyres over a range of circuits. That’s going to continue.

“A bit of a shame he had that accident at Parabolica. The pace was certainly good, we’ll chat to him about building up a bit more gently in future and how you approach the race weekend, but yes, we’re looking forward to getting him in the car again, [and] we’ll pick the right circuit for that.

“We’ve got a lot of sprint races coming up so you’re not going to want to have a race driver missing their only free practice session at a sprint race, so limited choice, but yes, he will be back in and we’re looking forward to getting him back in the car.”