“He's causing us grey hair” - why Kimi Antonelli’s speed is a luxury problem for Mercedes
· Yahoo Sports
For better or for worse, there seems to be no slowing down Kimi Antonelli.
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Just ask Pete Bonnington, who channelled his inner schoolteacher in Madrid as he relentlessly had to remind the 20-year-old Italian to pay attention to track limits.
Having benefited from an earlier virtual safety car on a circuit where overtaking proved impossible, all Antonelli had to do was to keep it clean until the finish line, with Max Verstappen and Lando Norris resigned to following him home.
Read Also: How Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes made their own luck in MadridBonnington and Mercedes had already suffered a scare earlier in the race with what almost sounded like a prank call from the young Italian.
Antonelli: "Check the car!"
Bonnington: "Which corner?"
Antonelli: "No I didn't touch any wall, but the steering feels weird..."
But with five laps to go, despite little genuine pressure from behind, Antonelli did tag one of the many concrete walls lining the challenging Madring circuit. "I touched the wall on the entry to Turn 7," Antonelli yelled.
Despite being in control, it was another race where Antonelli had been dangerously flirting with the track limits, much to the dismay of his father Marco and team boss Toto Wolff. There's just no slowing Antonelli down.
"I just discussed it with his father and we were joking: 'What an idiot!'. No, that's just Kimi,” the Mercedes boss said after the race. “The white lines, we had to drum it into his head that he shouldn't go over the white lines. Even in Monza, he still went over the white lines and [risked] the car. And the same with track limits.
"At a certain stage, I said to him: 'Don't you see out of the car? Do we need to sit you that high up so that you have [avoid] those track limit things? We had a laugh about it.
"And today, six laps to the end or whatever it was, he says: 'Check the car, I just brushed the wall.' What?! He's causing us grey hair. But maybe he's like this and maybe that's what's making him so quick."
Wolff added: "He had to hit the wall again because he wants to go fast. Sometimes for me, he's an inch too cool."
Kimi Antonelli is giving Toto Wolff a few grey hairs
Kimi Antonelli is giving Toto Wolff a few grey hairsAntonelli's flat-out approach appears to be a trait that Wolff and Mercedes are going to have to live with for now, at least until it goes wrong one day. Could that day come when Antonelli starts thinking about the big prize at the end as he careens towards a maiden world championship?
Wolff is adamant that won't be the case, despite Antonelli being by far the youngest driver to ever be in that position. "I promise you he's not thinking about it," Wolff insisted. "The way this kid is able to compartmentalise and be the young kid and then get into the car and be the mature racing driver...
"If Kimi says to himself: 'I'm not thinking about the championship', then he's not thinking about the championship. We are also trying, the parents and myself, the team is saying: 'You know, this is not finished.'
"There are black swan events. They can come and you're losing something out of your hands when you didn't think it was possible to lose. So, he's not going to think about it. We're too grown up and mature for this. We think about worst-case scenarios. He doesn't think about it."
Building on the lessons of a troubled debut year in 2025, Antonelli feels he has the right support system around him to carry him through to the finish line, whether that be in Abu Dhabi or at an impromptu home race in Imola near his native Bologna.
Kimi Antonelli has a strong support network in the paddock
Kimi Antonelli has a strong support network in the paddock"I’m lucky to have really good people around me," Antonelli explained. "I have an incredible team that supports me, a great family. Especially my dad is the one who keeps me on the ground. Especially when he sees that I might lose a little bit the way, he doesn’t [hesitate] to tell me off or to just tell me to come back to the ground.
"On my side, as I said many times, I just try to do my best every race, trying to really drive as fast as I can whenever I go in the car. And then we’ll see where we end up at the end of the year. But definitely I don’t want to overcomplicate things or just drive worrying about championship or results. Just driving, doing my best."
Driving as fast as he can all the time, is certainly working for Antonelli right now. As far as his team is concerned, almost to a fault.
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