Antonelli entering an F1 rookie spiral isn't unexpected – now is the time for Mercedes to back him

Up until 2024's British Grand Prix weekend, there was only a concept of Andrea Kimi Antonelli among the majority of those in the Formula 1 media. An image. There was, among the more learned journalists in the paddock, knowledge of his results - ADAC and Italian F4 titles, followed by the Formula Regional European Championship crown - but few had seen him race.

And when they did, as Antonelli emerged on F1's undercard in 2024 with a Prema drive in F2, few had heard him speak. That was largely by design; knowing that Antonelli had been touted as the next generational talent in F1, Mercedes wanted to ensure that the young Italian was kept protected from the more capricious side of publicity. This was understandable; the jump from FRECA to F2 was already sizeable and came without the intermediate step of F3, as Mercedes presumably felt that a year in 'The Series Formerly Known as GP3' would be a wasted expense.

Yet the ephemeral nature of Antonelli's public appearances had bestowed upon him a certain mystique, illustrating him as an elusive, mythical creature. A unicorn, perhaps; one that would appear in F1 mid-gallop and become the next figure to adorn the pantheon of motorsporting legends. The next Max Verstappen, they said, or perhaps the next Ayrton Senna. A prodigious racer destined to become the Valentino Rossi of four wheels. No wonder Mercedes erred on the side of caution.

When we say appearances were kept to a minimum 'by design', there was a smidgen of circumstance to take into account. The 2024 campaign marked the first season of F2's current chassis after six years running the troublesome F2 2018 cars (and boy, the stories I could tell you about that...) and enacted a bit of a shuffle in the competitive order. Antonelli was expected to do what he'd done in the lower categories with Prema and start challenging for victories early on, but Rene Rosin's squad needed more time to gel with the new F2 package while the likes of Campos and MP had uncovered performance early on in the season.

Thus, Antonelli did not appear in any of the press conferences until Silverstone. And when he did, after taking victory in the Saturday sprint race, some of the more established F1 journalists flocked down the corridor and entered the press conference room. It was unheard of; given usual clashes with other sessions, the F1 media pack rarely makes the special effort to join the pressers for the junior categories.

Antonelli was exposed to the wider media on a more regular basis through the second half of 2024 - the good and the bad. His FP1 appearance for Mercedes at Monza courted interest, his shunt courted news stories, and his signing courted column inches. Some questioned Mercedes' logic in thrusting the just-turned-18-year-old immediately into the spotlight, although others felt that the Bolognese had shown more potential in his two laps of FP1 than many had shown over their full careers in F1.

After being kept away from the spotlight last year, Antonelli rather crashed his way into it on his public Mercedes F1 maiden outing at Monza

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

But the realists in the F1 viewership knew that Antonelli would be in for a tough year. The adaptation to F1, having been racing in F4 just over two years before, would be a stratospheric climb; sure, Verstappen had made the even greater climb from karts to F3 to F1 in successive years, but no two drivers are the same - and the Dutchman is a force of nature.

When Antonelli demonstrated great pace but a wild streak in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, his gravel-rattling efforts yielding floor damage and a Q1 exit, it was accepted as a proverbial 'work in progress' sign draped across his shoulders. And despite his subsequent spin in wet conditions during the grand prix, his rise to fourth by the end had left those who expected little of him stunned. The early season peaks, particularly in qualifying (culminating in pole in the Miami sprint) demonstrated Antonelli's promise, and it wasn't wholly surprising to see him slip back a little in the races; nailing tyre management takes a few seasons to master, just ask Oscar Piastri.

But since Imola, his season has largely run aground; Montreal being the exception as he held on to third place. After perhaps overstretching in his home race, hosting schoolfriends and at the beck and call of local media interest, Antonelli delivered a muted performance in qualifying. The throttle damper issue that put him out can't be attributed to him but, regardless, the home favourite noted that he perhaps hadn't managed his energy particularly well through the weekend. He needed to let the experience wash over him; instead, he was a smidgen over-awed.

"Kimi's on a steep learning curve and he's going to be getting better as a driver. The fact that his early performances were better than they are now is almost certainly that the car's not as competitive" Andrew Shovlin

A qualifying crash in Monaco did feel characteristic of a rookie, but a strong performance in Barcelona went unrewarded thanks to an oil pressure issue. Montreal broke up the misery, but the following rounds have been defined by over-eagerness (with the lap one assault on Verstappen at Austria's Turn 3), misfortune (presented with terminal damage by Isack Hadjar in Silverstone's first wet restart), and now the addition of apparent backward steps by the team in Belgium.

The cooler, wet conditions around Spa should have helped Mercedes sing, but Antonelli had been hampered by some dismal qualifying efforts and a recovery drive petered out before he could even get near the points. George Russell took fifth by comparison, and stated that he'll be part of a "big meeting" as the Silver Arrows tries to course-correct for the rest of 2025.

"Kimi's on a steep learning curve and he's going to be getting better as a driver," reckoned trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin. "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.

Antonelli has shown flashes of speed amid errors expected from a rookie, but digging deeper his problems haven't been all his own making

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

"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."

Although Mercedes has attempted to curtail some of the pressure on its young hopeful, the recent media interest in the team's future line-up and the availability of Verstappen has not been entirely helpful for Antonelli's progress. A team can never wholly protect a driver from paddock rumours and scrutiny, but it might have quelled some of his urgency to earn a 2026 recall by publicly firming up his place in the line-up.

Of course, it could never truly do this; the team wants to keep both Russell and Antonelli, but it also wants Verstappen. Were the four-time champion to become surprisingly available in 2026 (an avenue that now seems closed), Antonelli may have found himself being farmed out to another team - the suggestion being that one of the teams being powered by Mercedes next season had a clear vacancy to fill, to which the Italian would be 'seconded'.

But one naturally induces a degree of instability with glances elsewhere. Now that Verstappen seems to be off the table for next season, Mercedes should now hasten its efforts to lock both drivers down, and ensure that they can breathe easily knowing that the contract-talks can has been kicked down the road for another season. Stripping the pressure away from Antonelli's shoulders by the time the season starts again after the summer break should bring a return to the prosperous form he had started the year with.

One might argue that all of this will help Antonelli in the long run, in exposing him to the bitter, unsentimental winds of Formula 1 - but there's no point in doing so unnecessarily. Rookie campaigns should be treated with unconditional support, and the opportunity to learn and grow. Difficult times will happen; an F1 neophyte does not arrive as a plug-and-play object, and must be reared on a healthy diet of data and seat-time to understand where the limits lie. McLaren did so with Piastri, Red Bull did so with Verstappen - and if you look at Alpine's current situation, the approach of treating drivers as expendable doesn't appear to be working.

Mercedes must underline its commitment to youth here, and Antonelli must be backed to the hilt - it simply cannot leave his level of potential unrealised.

The Italian has shown signs of promise as Hamilton's heir at Mercedes - but now needs the team's backing to deliver on it

Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images