Wolff reveals huge impact of Antonelli ‘Lego box’ crash

Toto Wolff has revealed that Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s practice crash at the Italian Grand Prix registered as 45g, leaving the car looking like a “lego box.”

10 minutes into FP1, Mercedes protege Antonelli lost the rear of the W15, spinning at high-speed across the gravel and into the barrier, hitting broadside.

He climbed unaided from the car, but was taken to the medical centre for precautionary checks given the scale of the impact – 45 times the force of gravity.

Reflecting on the incident, Wolff described George Russell’s car – for whom Antonelli was deputising in FP1 – as looking like a “lego box.”

“Most importantly, he is okay because the crash was 45g,” Wolff told media including RacingNews365. 

“He’s very young and we are prepared to invest into his future, and these moments will happen. 

“They will continue to happen next year, but there will also bit a lot of highlights, and what we’ve seen today was we’d rather have a problem in slowing him down than making him faster because what we’ve seen from one-and-a-half laps is just astonishing.

“His first run was very, very quick and when he got back to the garage, he apologised first of all, and this is what you need to do when you bring a car back that looks a little bit like a lego box falling on the ground and over the floor.”

Impact on Russell

Wolff also revealed the race against time the team was facing to repair the machine for Russell in FP2, but expressed his confidence that it would be possible, even if a little delayed.

“The second priority is to get the car ready for George so the programme doesn’t suffer too much,” he said. 

“Hopefully it is going to be okay. 

“We might be a little late, but it is going to be okay. 

“It is unfortunate because having had the hour to run, we would have seen a good performance, but that is what we have always said, he is a rookie.”