{"id":92356,"date":"2025-05-11T09:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-11T09:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/92356\/"},"modified":"2025-05-11T09:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-11T09:11:10","slug":"where-wolff-thinks-antonelli-must-improve-during-rookie-f1-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/92356\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Wolff thinks Antonelli must improve during rookie F1 campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/a>\u2019s rookie Formula 1 season has so far reassured Mercedes<\/a> in terms of raw speed and potential, but team boss Toto Wolff and his driver do expect a noticeable step forward as far as race pace is concerned.<\/p>\n

Antonelli had a breakthrough weekend in Miami as he outqualified highly rated team-mate George Russell<\/a> twice, even claiming pole position for the sprint. Previously, his average deficit in terms of one-lap pace had been 0.370s.<\/p>\n

However, the 18-year-old was beaten by his elder for the sixth time in as many grand prix races. Antonelli made the most of the Max Verstappen\/Lando Norris battle at the start to grab second, but was then overtaken by both McLarens yet maintained a pace similar to Russell\u2019s behind \u2013 however the Briton was on hard tyres and the Italian on mediums.<\/p>\n

The virtual safety car gave Russell the opportunity of a cheap stop to get ahead of the sister Mercedes, with Antonelli among the drivers losing out, dropping to sixth; then the youngster proved to be much slower as tyre compounds were reversed, losing 14 seconds over the last 27 laps.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the high point definitely [is] seeing the speed on a single lap \u2013 great,\u201d Wolff commented, assessing his protege\u2019s performance. \u201cThat’s another proof of his talent and a good indication of how the future can be.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then in the race, challenging, because it’s so difficult here to find the right reference. You can say, was the medium stint quick enough? With George holding on in the back on the hard tyres \u2013 not good. And then when [Antonelli] went onto the hard\u2026 He just lacks experience managing it the right way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for Kimi at that stage it was about bringing the car home in that position.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Andrea <\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: James Sutton \/ Motorsport Images<\/p>\n

Antonelli himself is acutely aware that he has room for improvement following this perfectible Miami display.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to check the race pace,\u201d he admitted. \u201cToday was just not good, especially on the hard. I really struggled to make the tyre work in the stint, I was just sliding a lot around and I couldn’t really find a lap time.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I definitely need to analyse what went wrong in order to be better for Imola.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was quite unique, this race, because it was the first time that I really struggled to make the tyre work. But still, there’s a lot of positives to take away for next weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A lot of positives\u2019, that\u2019s also what Wolff sees, with Antonelli taking five top-six finishes in the first six grands prix of his nascent F1 career; given his inexperience, tyre management was always going to be a struggle at some point.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding the right references \u2013 and [race engineer] Bono really tried to guide him \u2013 when you’re in that car, it’s not easy,\u201d the Austrian pointed out. \u201cAnd I think it’s just part of the learning curve, there’s nothing that is disappointing or not. Overall, I go away with the feeling that he’s done a good job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Mark Mann-Bryans and Emily Selleck<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

In this article<\/p>\n

Ben Vinel\n<\/p>\n

Formula 1\n<\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli\n<\/p>\n

Mercedes\n<\/p>\n

Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics<\/p>\n

Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrea Kimi Antonelli\u2019s rookie Formula 1 season has so far reassured Mercedes in terms of raw speed and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[13328,4199,707,4200,4859,24496,24497,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-92356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-mercedes","13":"tag-miami-gp","14":"tag-miami-international-autodrome","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114488428810196326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}