Mercedes and their Kimi Antonelli views amid F1 teen starlet's 'disappointment' The NY Journals

Kimi Antonelli has endured a rocky first season in Formula 1, since being handed the keys to Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, but it was always likely to be this way for the teenager

While there was nothing but joy on one side of the Mercedes garage on that humid Sunday night in Singapore, on the other there was frustration. There was the feeling of an opportunity missed, of a failure to make the most out of a very presentable situation.

Because, not that they were immediately certain as to why, the Silver Arrows were rapid at the Marina Bay Circuit last weekend. George Russell took pole position and converted it into his second win of a stellar season for the Brit, who has emerged from Lewis Hamilton’s shadow to prove himself a very effective team leader at Mercedes.

He was always supposed to do a lot better than Kimi Antonelli this year. The teenager was fast-tracked into Formula 1, made necessary by Hamilton’s decision to join Ferrari, and team principal Toto Wolff was clear from the beginning that this would be a year of learning, with little to no expectation when it came to results.

But when you begin life in F1 the way Antonelli did, expectation is the inevitable side-effect. Fourth on debut amid chaos in Melbourne, five top-six finishes from the first half-dozen Grands Prix and pole position for the Miami Sprint indicated that Wolff may have been wrong – perhaps the young Italian wouldn’t need nearly as much time to adapt as initially thought.

However, burnout struck early. After his first European race, in his own back yard at Imola, half-an-hour away from his Bologna, the teenager admitted himself that he had failed to manage his energy after inviting family and school friends to the paddock, and also celebrating his home city team’s famous Coppa Italia success in the days leading up to that race.

The European season was a complete write-off for Antonelli, who suffered four DNFs and scored three points in total across nine Grands Prix. But there was that one bright spark in Canada where he scored his first podium, finishing third while team-mate Russell won, while more consistent form has return since the F1 circus left Europe for Asia.

Despite racing on less familiar track, he finished fourth in Baku and fifth in Singapore and was underwhelmed by that latter result. “I felt really good in the car and just a bit disappointed because the potential was higher,” he said after the race, feeling he should have started alongside Russell on the front row if he had not allowed “emotion” to creep in at the end of qualifying a day earlier.

On paper, Russell’s results this year suggest his team-mate has significantly underperformed. The Brit has 237 points to Antonelli’s 88. The Italian has out-qualified the other Mercedes three times across 18 Grands Prix and three Sprints. He has never finished ahead of Russell in any form of F1 race.

Those numbers would usually put a driver’s place at risk, but that is not the case here. Antonelli does not yet have a contract for 2026, but he will get one. Mercedes bosses are entirely unperturbed by the difficulties he has endured at times this year. They remain convinced of his massive potential.

More than that, they see his self-criticism after even a decent showing, like that one in Singapore, as a sign that he has the sort of mentality and drive for perfection that tends to define F1’s greats. Make no mistake, even though it hasn’t always been pretty for Antonelli this year, his Mercedes team still believes he will go on to become something special.

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