Recent changes to Mercedes’ 2025 Formula 1 car may well be to blame for the team’s drop in form, according to trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin, who theorises this is hurting rookie driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli more than his more experienced team-mate.
Antonelli has endured a miserable run of form over the last seven races, with four retirements and two non-scoring finishes punctuated by his season-best result of third in Montreal. After starting 2025 brightly, the Italian has been unable to match the pace of team-mate George Russell at recent events.
Shovlin noted that the Mercedes W16 was currently proving to be “difficult”, and that the team needed to rediscover a more natural baseline that would ensure that the chassis could be more amenable over a race weekend. Russell had stated that Mercedes should have performed at Spa given its preference for cooler conditions, and thus felt that his fifth-place finish was ‘underwhelming’.
Adding to this, Shovlin stated that Russell was also struggling with the W16 as-is, but his bigger databank of F1 experience was helping him mitigate some of the troubles faced in recent rounds.
“I think what you’ve seen in the recent qualifyings is that George is leaning on his many years of experience in an F1 car to try and make the most of a difficult car,” Shovlin explained after the Belgian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes
Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images
“Kimi hasn’t got that to drop back on, and that’s probably why you’ve seen a bit of a shift in his results recently.
“But again, it goes back to the fact we’ve got to solve that problem because there’s still a long way to go this year. It is quite likely something that we’ve changed on the car, and we need to get back to a baseline where it’s working more normally.
“Kimi’s had a few tough weekends, but he’s getting a lot of engineering support from Bono and the engineers on that side of the garage.
“We as a team are well aware that the thing that we need to focus on is the weaknesses in the car, not the bits that Kimi’s struggling with.
“And as I said, the fact is that George is leaning on all his experience, quite a bit of it driving difficult cars, to get the qualifying laps out of it. We’re finding quite a lot of time during the session.
Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes talks with Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director Mercedes
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
“It’s just because George is learning to know when he can trust the car and [he] can lean on it, but he’s not getting that feeling from it inherently.”
Shovlin backed Antonelli to keep improving, and said that taking steps to ensure the car is less problematic should offer a bigger swing in the Bologna-born teen’s form.
He said that there were changes that the team could make between Spa and this weekend’s round in Hungary, but wanted to ensure the team was “focused on the right things, not just changing things for the sake of it”.
“Kimi’s on a steep learning curve and he’s going to be getting better as a driver,” Shovlin added. “The fact that his early performances were better than they are now is almost certainly that the car’s not as competitive, and you can see that mirrored in George’s results.
“We’ve seen it lots of times before as well. When a young driver comes in and they’re in a very good car, they can often really impress.
“When a young driver comes in and they’re in a difficult car, it’s very hard to get it together week in, week out. We’ve seen enough from Kimi to know that there’s a great deal of talent there.
“But what will help George will also help Kimi, and it will probably help Kimi more.”
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