Mercedes F1 News: Kimi Antonelli reveals Toto Wolff crisis talks

Mercedes

Kimi Antonelli reveals Toto Wolff crisis talks

Antonelli reflected on his rookie F1 season

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Monday 22 December 2025 19:43

Mercedes F1 star Kimi Antonelli revealed that his poor European portion of the 2025 season led to crisis talks with team principal Toto Wolff.

Wolff played an instrumental role in Antonelli's rise through the motorsport ranks, offering support and advice during difficult moments during his F2 career.

The team principal was once again called to rally around his young driver, after Antonelli delivered a series of poor results from Austria until Monza.

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Crashes and Q1 exits resulted in the Italian youngster only picking up three points in this period, in contrast to team-mate George Russell who foraged 58 points in the same length of time.

Speaking to Gazzetta dello Sport, Antonelli revealed that after Monza, Wolff and his race engineer Peter Bonnington, delivered an intervention and helped him reset his performances.

"Returning to the old rear suspension definitely helped me a lot," Antonelli said.

"Then, after Monza, I had a meeting with Toto and Bono, my engineer, who told me what was wrong with what I was doing and helped me understand how to do a real mental reset."

Wolff also reflects on Antonelli's 2025

Following a mixed-bag of results for Antonelli in 2025, Wolff remained complimentary of his driver speaking on the Beyond the Grid podcast.

"The thing is that when we speak with Kimi, we are brutally honest when it's good and when it's bad. And then you remind yourself that you're not sitting opposite an adult. Kimi's more kid than an adult," Wolff explained.

“And you have to remind yourself that he's just 19. Yes, he's a pro in the car and he's been karting all his life and racing all his life. But from the maturity, we're expecting an acceleration of growth that is almost too difficult.

"He's been thrown into this, and I think when you look at some of the worse races, it's just overwhelming the experience that he's making with all of the interest, the media pressure – they're writing you up and down."

"When I was 19, I was a bit of an idiot. I wouldn't have been able to cope with the pressures that he is. And that's why, when I talk to him, I'm a little bit harsh with him, I need to almost take myself back and say, ‘Hold on a minute, you know, he's a kid’. And that's quite an interesting learning for us also.”

F1 Mercedes Toto Wolff Kimi Antonelli Peter Bonnington