{"id":97930,"date":"2025-08-28T04:56:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/97930\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T04:56:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T04:56:20","slug":"kimi-antonelli-getting-weaker-mercedes-becoming-a-one-man-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/97930\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli &#8220;getting weaker&#8221;, Mercedes &#8220;becoming a one-man team&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">Ex-F1 driver Jolyon Palmer has warned Mercedes that they risk becoming a \u201cone-man team\u201d amid Kimi Antonelli\u2019s dip in form.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/1043641\/andrea-kimi-antonelli\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kimi Antonelli <\/a>has scored points just twice in the previous nine races.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Italian has been plagued with poor reliability, but since Mercedes\u2019 Imola upgrade, he\u2019s struggled for overall pace.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Mercedes reverted back to an older specification suspension part at the Hungaroring.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The change appeared to have an immediate impact as<a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/912063\/george-russell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> George Russell <\/a>returned to the podium.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Speaking on the latest episode of the F1 Nation podcast, Palmer assessed the battle for second in the constructors\u2019 championship ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cA little bit like Ferrari, they\u2019re becoming a one-man team at the moment, Palmer said.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWith Hamilton struggling, you\u2019ve got Antonelli struggling probably even more. So they need to try and get Antonelli firing again to try and overhaul Ferrari in the championship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Antonelli waiting on new Mercedes deal<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Mercedes have yet to announce their driver line-up for next year.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/852\/max-verstappen\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Max Verstappen<\/a> ended speculation linking him with a move to Mercedes for 2026.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/xpb_1354421_hires.jpg\" alt=\"Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes\" width=\"1440\" height=\"961\" loading=\"lazy\"\/> <\/p>\n<p>Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes<\/p>\n<p> \u00a9\u00a0XPB Images<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Palmer believes that Mercedes announcing a new deal for Antonelli will only ease the pressure.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cI hope so,\u201d Palmer added. \u201cIf it were me in the car, it would be a huge weight off my shoulders.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cAll of the chatter in the paddock over the summer of Verstappen\u2019s coming in, looks like Russell would be heading out, but then George started pointing the finger at Kimi and saying, well, hang on, I\u2019m beating him.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cSo, then you\u2019re 18 and a rookie, and you\u2019re thinking flipping heck, this is tough stuff in Formula 1.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cIt still is. But at least he can have the confidence that he most likely will still be at Mercedes; they\u2019ve given him time now.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cAnd the potential, I\u2019m sure, is there. But he\u2019s again in this spiral that we\u2019ve seen with various drivers over recent years, where he\u2019s now overthinking every time he gets in the car. He\u2019s not driving on his natural instincts anymore.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe do see flashes of performance through free practice and various points in the race where you think, ah, this is what we saw earlier in the season.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cBut as the season\u2019s going on, he\u2019s actually comparatively getting weaker to his teammate, which is the entire reverse of what you\u2019d expect from an 18-year-old rookie who should be learning, should be getting closer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ex-F1 driver Jolyon Palmer has warned Mercedes that they risk becoming a \u201cone-man team\u201d amid Kimi Antonelli\u2019s dip&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[8895,1687,372,6537,6964,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-97930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-mercedes","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97930","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=97930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}