Toto Wolff reckons Andrea Kimi Antonelli is carrying trauma and baggage of previous mistakes, which is hurting his performances off-late in F1.
It hasn’t been a good run for Antonelli ever since Mercedes brought an upgrade in Imola. It not only hurt him but also George Russell. After they pulled back on the update, things started to look good but the Italian compound his issues by making some basic errors.
The big one happened in Zandvoort when he was recovering well. He took out Charles Leclerc in the process. In Monza, he crashed in FP2 which hurt his chances in the race. In the grand prix as well, he got a penalty which dropped him to ninth from seventh.
He has dropped to eighth in the drivers’ standings as a result, behind Alexander Albon. The European leg has been sort of a disaster with just two points finishes in nine events. He is pleased to see the back of it, with the hope for a better run in the flyaway events to come.
“It was much better [management of the race in Monza],” said Antonelli. “I felt much more at ease with everything and managing everything. It was still not an easy race, but now the European part of the season is finished. Now we go again out of Europe. Hopefully, we can get the nice rhythm again and get some good points.
“Definitely, the European season has been very difficult and not ideal. So, hopefully, now we can have a good trend like at the start of the season. I’m really looking forward to that. I’m honestly really happy that this European season is finished,” summed up Antonelli, who team boss Wolff – for the first time – publicly noted the performance to be ‘underwhelming’.
The Austrian doesn’t think there is lack of talent. He feels the ghost of past mistakes is not shedding away from the minds of Antonelli, which is hurting his current performance. He has to free his mind. Wolff noted that Mercedes is doing as much to get his mind to be clear of tensions.
“I think a clean weekend also means almost, not to carry too much trauma of previous mistakes into the next session or into the next weekend, because that is luggage,” said Wolff. “You’re not going to attack the corner hard if you’ve been off there before and it finished your session, or maybe you’re not attacking a driver that should not be in your way, like Gasly in Monza, because we had this situation with Leclerc [in Zandvoort]. I mean, Kimi shouldn’t lose even a second with Gasly.
“I think just freeing him up, freeing him up. Drive. He’s a great driver. He has this unbelievable ability and natural talent. He’s a racer. This is all there. But, we need to get rid of the ballast of the previous races. [How?] By talking,” summed up Wolff.
Here’s Toto Wolff on McLaren saga
Here’s Mercedes drivers on Italian GP