“Just astonishing”: Toto Wolff left impressed with Kimi Antonelli despite 45G crash in Monza FP1

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes Kimi Antonelli's pace was exceptional in the FP1 of the 2024 Italian GP despite his crash. Speaking to media including Sportskeeda in the team principal’s press conference, the Austrian felt that slowing down the rookie is an issue due to his blistering quick pace.

Antonelli crashed into the barriers at Turn 10 of the Monza circuit on his first F1 outing. Discussing the crash, Wolff reckoned that the young Italian was unable to slow down in time due to his impeccable pace. The Austrian preferred to have a problem where he had to slow a driver down rather than find ways to make him quick. The F2 Prema driver came out unscathed from the 45G impact into the barriers.

Commenting on Kimi Antonelli crashing in FP1, the Mercedes Executive Director said:

“Yeah, most importantly, he's OK, because the crash was 45G, so that's important. Second priority is to get the car ready for George, so the programme doesn't suffer too much, which hopefully is going to be OK. We may run a little bit late, but it's going to be OK. And the third one, yeah, it's unfortunate, because I guess having had an hour to run, we would have seen some good performances,” Wolff said.

“But that's what we always said: he's a rookie, he's very young, we are prepared to invest into his future and these moments, they will happen and they will continue to happen next year. But there will also be a lot of highlights. And I think what we've seen today was…. We’d rather have a problem in slowing him down than making him faster. Because what we've seen from one and a half laps is just astonishing,” he added.

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Mercedes boss reckons the optics of the crash have shadowed the hidden pace of Kimi Antonelli

The Mercedes chief said that the hidden pace that Kimi Antonelli had on the lap he crashed was exceptional and the few laps of running that he did, unmasked a lot of his potential. The Italian driver was supposed to be 14 km/hr quicker than Max Verstappen through the iconic Ascari chicane. He was the quickest driver throughout the Lesmos and Ascari sections of the track before crashing. Wolff felt that the car couldn’t handle Antonelli's raw pace as his minimum speed through the second Lesmo section was 7km/h quicker than the Dutch champion’s best.

Commenting on the data of Kimi Antonelli's performance in FP1, Wolff said:

“I think the circumstances are guilty. In our industry we perfectly understand who is capable and not. And I think how it's all panned out here, he's jumped F3, he's pretty much won everything beforehand then it's clear you start to become a Mercedes driver, you test in FP1, and at the same time you're under the magnifying glass because it all happens in Monza. And it has been a while that an Italian driver was in a top team. So I'm sure that this can be a lot for an 18-year-old. But as I said before, you know, he needs to swim. And these days that are so difficult, like it is for him at the moment, it feels certainly terrible. And that's part of the development curve.”

“And, you know, I don't want to be the one who picks out great moments and say, well, did you see that sector? Did you see that lap time? Or we could have been third or first or whatever. But what we see is, and that's why I chose the word differently, what we see is there's performance. And we've even seen that in the few laps that we've seen, but what he tried to do, the car can't take.”

Despite the disappointment of having an interrupted FP1 outing, Kimi Antonelli was announced as a Mercedes driver the day after and will pair alongside George Russell next year. Wolff felt that much of the rookie’s run was under a magnifying glass which can pressure the driver. The Prema driver has won every championship outside F1 and is currently seventh in the driver’s standings in the Formula 2 championship. However, Prema has not had the best car to do justice to the young rookie’s talent.