when he ran off the track during first practice<\/a>.<\/p>\nFollowing a Q2 exit in Qualifying, Antonelli worked his way into the points-paying positions on race day, only for an attempted pass on Charles Leclerc for P5 in the closing stages to backfire \u2013 the Ferrari driver being sent into a spin and then the wall (see the video below).<\/p>\n
Antonelli was subsequently given a 10-second time penalty by the stewards and tumbled down the order to 16th position, prompting plenty of questions during Wolff\u2019s post-race media session in the paddock.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we made it clear last year in Monza that we would give him the opportunity, we were also saying that we would give him a year of learning, and there would be moments where we\u2019d tear our hair out, and there would be other moments of brilliance,\u201d Wolff began.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this weekend pretty much sums that up. The mistake in FP1, clearly something that puts him on the back foot for the rest of the weekend, and then in the race, these moments of great driving.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce he was in free air, he was behind the McLaren, the quickest car, caught up, and then again was involved in that accident that unfortunately meant the end for Charles\u2019 race and also for Kimi\u2019s race. But we want him to go for the moves, obviously.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, up and downs, and that was absolutely expected from this season. And every one of those days is going to be a learning for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about Antonelli taking out a Ferrari a week before the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Wolff argued that fans would rather see drivers \u201cpush to the limit and sometimes over\u201d than be \u201chesitant\u201d with their actions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I was thinking in the race, what would it have been if Kimi would have overtaken a Ferrari?\u201d Wolff said. \u201cI 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. That\u2019s what happened today.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Italian fans don\u2019t want to have a hesitating driver, but someone that goes [for it]. Obviously, from the team\u2019s perspective, we don\u2019t want to take a Ferrari out. Certainly not. I\u2019m sure that Kimi doesn\u2019t want to take a Ferrari out particularly. But it is what it is. It\u2019s hard racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry for Charles and Ferrari, but we want him to go for the moves, and he should.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Mercedes not fighting for this year\u2019s Teams\u2019 Championship, Wolff added that Antonelli\u2019s dramas have \u201cless relevance than next year, when it\u2019s important to score the points\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to have a driver that has speed, that is fast, that learns, that scores the points, but all the big ones [drivers] make mistakes,\u201d he commented, before pointing to Verstappen\u2019s rollercoaster arrival in the sport<\/a> at a similar age.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to compare now because Max was given a different environment in Toro Rosso at the beginning, but there were also some moments where you said, \u2018That was a big mistake\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cKimi, 18 years old, thrown in this mammoth of a team, representing Mercedes, he\u2019s going to make mistakes. Hopefully less mistakes next year and scoring bigger points. But my 100% belief is in him in the long term, and that is just part of the learning.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has thrown his support behind Kimi Antonelli following the rookie racer\u2019s turbulent weekend at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-112592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}