Five things we learned from Antonelli’s first F1 weekend

It’s fair to say Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s first official Formula 1 weekend was one that will be remembered for years to come – although not necessarily for the right reasons.

In a remarkable 24-hour period, he had a blistering start to practice, an early shunt that grabbed the headlines, and then was officially announced as a Mercedes F1 driver for 2025.

Here is what we learned about him at Monza.

Antonelli now knows the difference between FP1 and qualifying

Antonelli went from hero to zero in the first minutes of free practice at Monza – topping the times briefly before his big crash at Parabolica.

While his early flashes of speed during his first FP1 outing still left his Mercedes bosses talking him up – labelling him too fast for his car/tyres rather than overdriving – it was clear that ending up in the barriers in a practice session was not a good look.

Perhaps the biggest takeaway of all from Monza is that the young Italian needs to temper his approach better in the future.

During their press conference appearance on Saturday as his 2025 deal was made public, Antonelli himself and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff both admitted that a key understanding was in knowing when to push on race weekends – and when to leave a margin.

As Wolff said: “You can’t make somebody quick. Then it’s on us trying to help to condition Kimi that every lap doesn’t need to be like this.

“[Technical director] James Allison actually said, when he [Antonelli] launched himself on the first lap yesterday, that first braking into the chicane, he had both tyres on the left in the grass already!

“So the difference between free practice and qualifying, we need to discuss…”

Antonelli did not shy away from accepting that this approach to FP1, in being flat out from the start, was wrong.

“I learned that I cannot go flat out looking for the limit straight away, especially looking back,” he said. “The track was very slippery. The grip was quite a bit lower than expected. So yeah, just I guess I was pushing too hard.”

He later added: “Of course, I still have so much to learn, learning how to deal with a full race weekend. And I think yesterday [Friday] was the proof!” 

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