Kimi Antonelli F1 News: Mercedes star breaks silence following SHOCKING Monza debut

Antonelli crashes in practice at Monza — Photo: © IMAGO

Italian Grand Prix

Antonelli breaks silence following SHOCKING F1 debut

Kimi Antonelli had a nightmare F1 debut

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Saturday 31 August 2024 08:27

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Kimi Antonelli has issued a statement following a shocking crash during his Formula 1 debut at the Italian Grand Prix.

The 18-year-old has been tipped to replace Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes after he announced his decision to join Ferrari for 2025.

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Antonelli finally made his F1 debut with Mercedes during FP1 on Friday, and proceeded to demonstrate immense speed around the track.

However, Antonelli’s inexperience came to light as he crashed at Parabolica, damaging George Russell’s car and cutting his debut short.

George Russell's FP2 session was delayed following Kimi Antonelli's crash

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Whilst Antonelli will undoubtedly be rueing his error, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff remained supportive of his driver; stating he would rather have a problem ‘slowing’ Antonelli down than worrying about making him faster.

Speaking after his debut on Friday, the youngster apologised to the team for his mistake but seemed level-headed in the wake of his incident.

“Yeah what a day, first FP1 done, unfortunately it ended quite quickly because of the crash, was quite a big one, around 52Gs,” Antonelli said.

“Really sorry to the team and George for making them work afterwards.

“Just a mistake by my side, just pushing a bit too much for the conditions and, yeah, should have built the run a bit more progressively, but definitely lesson learned for next time.

Kimi Antonelli apologises to Mercedes after FP1 Monza incident

“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.”

Antonelli will continue his Formula 2 campaign this weekend, where he will aim to secure a third career win in the series from P6 on the grid for Sunday’s feature race.

“Not feeling super well at the moment, just going to go back and try to rest and try to focus for the rest of the weekend, because, you know, there's still some races to go and, we're going to still try to get a good result,” he added.