Mercedes technical director James Allison has confirmed that the team is actively encouraging its rookie driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli to put his 2024 Monza crash behind him. The incident, taking place on the driver’s Formula 1 debut during a practice session of the race weekend, has left him with “a degree of caution”.
Speaking about the 18-year-old’s approach to race weekends, Allison has admitted that the crash at Parabolica corner has altered Antonelli’s mindset.
“We talk about this a bit internally, and it may just be more gossip than reality, but the trip into the barrier at Monza, I think that may have just left him approaching the weekends with a degree of caution as a result,” he told F1.com.
“Really sorry to the team and George for making them work afterwards,” the driver said following the crash. “Just a mistake by my side, just pushing a bit too much for the conditions and I should have built the run a bit more progressively.
“But definitely a lesson learned for next time. But I’m still really thankful to the team for making this possible, and still great to see all the tifosi out there, and to get the first laps with all the drivers on track.
“I’m not feeling super well at the moment, I’m just going to go back and try to rest and try to focus for the rest of the weekend, because there’s still some races to go [in Formula 2] and we’re going to still try and get a good result.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes-AMG
Photo by: Mercedes-Benz
Allison added that the young Italian just has to find the confidence he originally showed in Italy last year.
“We’ve been encouraging him to sort of trust [his] talent: ‘You can lean into that more than you think you can’. As he gets the confidence to do that, he’s finding his feet more quickly during the weekend,” he said.
The crash at Monza shook Antonelli, with it taking place just 10 minutes into the session. The impact, measured at 52G, damaged his now team-mate George Russell’s W15 quite significantly, but this did very little to change the team’s interest in him, with him replacing Lewis Hamilton for the 2025 season.
“George has barely put a foot wrong,” Allison continued. “He’s been on the money in qualifying. Where we’ve given him a car that he’s able to work with, he’s done everything we could have hoped [for] with it, so bravo to him.
“That’s obviously giving Kimi a very high standard to shoot for. I’m pleased with the fact that Kimi, generally speaking this year, has been able to get close to George as the weekend’s gone on. As the year’s gone on, perhaps you could say he gets in the groove a bit swifter.
“But George is setting a very, very high bar. It’s a brilliant apprenticeship for Kimi to have someone as swift as George to shoot for.”
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