Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has warned there was unnecessary pressure placed on Kimi Antonelli’s shoulders by Italians after his strong performances early in the campaign.<\/p>\n
Antonelli joined Mercedes this year in place of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, who departed for Ferrari.<\/p>\n
The 18-year-old’s early-season successes at Mercedes included a sprint pole position in Miami and a podium finish in Canada.<\/p>\n
However, in the European leg of the season, Antonelli endured a difficult run of form, with point-scoring results a rarity.<\/p>\n
Antonelli was retained for the 2026 campaign alongside George Russell despite the challenging year as Wolff asserted he never lost faith in the rookie’s abilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I was always confident it’s going to get the grip, the necessary grip,\u201d Wolff told media including RacingNews365.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why it was always clear that Kimi was going to stay with us next year also, there was no doubt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith these complicated cars, the management of the tyres during them is something that you need to learn.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that respect, that’s a great result. One of the good days, many more difficult [days] but there was never a single moment of doubt in how he’s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Antonelli is largely seen as a long-term project for the Mercedes squad, having been part of the junior team for several years.<\/p>\n
Wolff asserted he has been encouraged by the performances Antonelli has been able to produce, but conceded some opinions formed earlier this year were too extreme.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always tried to dampen the expectations on him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Italians talked about the legend Kimi Antonelli after Montreal and after the Miami pole, and that’s an additional pressure.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo let’s keep both feet on the ground. He defended second from Max [in Brazil], that was very impressive, but we want to win races and championships\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has warned there was unnecessary pressure placed on Kimi Antonelli’s shoulders by Italians…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285781,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-285780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}