Mercedes to hold Kimi Antonelli talks with key message after F1 debut crash

Kimi Antonelli crashed out on debut with Mercedes in FP1 at Monza.

Storming to the top of the timesheet on his first flying lap in F1 only to crash on his second, Mercedes will sit down with Kimi Antonelli to discuss a more gentle build-up in future outings.

Antonelli made headlines at Monza last Friday when the Italian made his F1 debut with Mercedes in a young driver outing, blasting his way to P1 only to crash heavily 11 minutes into the session.

Kim Antonelli went P1, and then crashed at Monza

Laying down a 1:23.955 as his opening gambit, the 18-year-old was up on that on his second flying lap as he delivered a personal best in the first sector and went purple in the second.

And then it went horribly wrong at Parabolica.

Losing rear grip, he lost the back end of the W15 and spun off through the gravel before slamming into the barrier.

“I guess he was just bitten,” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff told the media including PlanetF1.com at Monza. “Everyone suffered from the temperature, especially rear temperatures around Ascari at these kinds of speeds – that is why the rear stepped out.”

He added: “We would rather have a problem in slowing him down than making him faster. What we have seen in one and a half laps is just astonishing.”

Slowing him down is exactly what trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin intends to do in the future, at least when it comes to his approach to a Grand Prix practice session.

“A bit of a shame that he had that accident at Parabolica,” he said in Mercedes’ post-race debrief.

“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, 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.”

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The weekend, though, ended on a better note for the Italian as Antonelli was confirmed as a 2025 Mercedes F1 driver on the Saturday morning, replacing the Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton.

Antonelli will be back in the car later this year for another FP1 as he fulfils the second of Mercedes’ two young driver outings for the season.

The team will also continue their ‘Testing of Previous Car’ (TPC) programme with the 18-year-old.

“Yes there will be [another FP1],” said Shovlin, “because the regulations require that both of our race drivers give up their seat for a Friday practice session. 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, 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.”

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