ZANDVOORT, Netherlands :Mercedes have expressed full support for Kimi Antonelli after the teenaged Italian Formula One rookie sent Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc crashing out of Sunday’s Dutch Grand Prix.
Team boss Toto Wolff said it was always going to be a learning year, a rollercoaster of brilliance and hair-tearing frustration, and the Zandvoort weekend provided a good example.
Antonelli, who has just turned 19, collided with Leclerc after both pitted and the Italian tried to overtake.
Race stewards handed out a 10 second penalty for causing the collision, and another five seconds for speeding in the pitlane, dropping Antonelli to 16th.
“We want to have a driver that has speed, that is fast, that learns, that scores the points,” Wolff told reporters. “But all the big ones make mistakes.
“Kimi, an 18-year-old thrown in this mammoth of a team representing Mercedes, he’s going to make mistakes – hopefully fewer mistakes next year and score bigger points. But my 100 per cent belief is in him on the long-term.”
Wolff said he had spoken to Antonelli after the race and “you just want to hug him, cuddle him, because he has that talent, the raw speed that is in him, and he copes well.”
Antonelli was announced as a Mercedes race driver at Monza last year, when he was just 18, and returns to the circuit near Milan this weekend as Italy’s sole F1 driver but also under something of a cloud.
Colliding with a Ferrari is never a good feeling for any Italian but Wolff felt the team’s ardent fans would be understanding.
“I was thinking in the race what would have been had Kimi overtaken the Ferrari?,” said the Austrian, whose team took current Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton to six of his seven titles.
“And I think the people in Italy would have been happy. Italian fans want an Italian driver that is fighting, that pushes the car to the limit and sometimes over the limit … the Italian fans don’t want to have a hesitating driver.
“I’m sure that Kimi doesn’t want to take a Ferrari out particularly but it is what it is. It’s hard racing … we want him to go for the moves and he should.”
Antonelli is sure to continue with Mercedes next season alongside George Russell, despite new agreements yet to be signed.
“We’re continuing with both of them, of course,” said Wolff.
