Kimi Antonelli’s future at Mercedes is safe, with Toto Wolff confirming the Italian will stay with the group for the 2026 season, regardless of his expensive crash with Charles Leclerc on the Dutch Grand Prix
Regardless of a expensive crash on the Dutch Grand Prix, Toto Wolff is sticking together with his driver line-up of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. That’s regardless of one other chastening expertise for the latter at Zandvoort which noticed him depart with out scoring factors once more.
The Italian teenager’s bold transfer on Charles Leclerc led to catastrophe when he despatched the Monegasque racer into the wall after an audacious try at flip three. Not solely was the Ferrari driver’s race ended however the penalty Antonelli picked up ruined his probabilities of a powerful consequence.
Antonelli had certified simply exterior the highest 10 however was operating as excessive as sixth when Mercedes determined to convey him in for an undercut try on Leclerc. Regardless of rising from the pit exit simply forward of the younger Italian, Leclerc managed to retain his place on observe.
Nonetheless, sensing a possibility, Antonelli made a daring lunge at flip three which spectacularly backfired. As he dived in low, he drew alongside Leclerc, however as they rounded the steep banked nook, he veered up in the direction of the rear of the SF-25 machine.
On exit, his front-right tyre clipped the Ferrari, sending the 27-year-old crashing into the obstacles and out of the race. The fallout noticed Antonelli slapped with a 10-second time penalty and two penalty factors, and he later collected one other five-second penalty for dashing within the pit lane.
These penalties noticed him drop all the way down to sixteenth on the chequered flag, ruining what had been a promising weekend. Nonetheless, regardless of these expensive errors, Wolff’s plans for his driver line-up stay unchanged. “I at all times stated, there’s not going to be any huge information as a result of we’re doing this,” he stated.
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“With George [Russell], there’s a number of issues the place we wish to optimise among the travelling and the advertising days, what number of hours we’re placing [into it]. He is an skilled driver, and for us, it is at all times essential to speak about it.
“We wish to have the very best efficiency of the drivers, and I believe we have given each of them fairly a pressure with advertising actions and media actions, and that is how we, in a means, recalibrate.
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“Is there going to be an announcement in Monza? No. However I do not assume it is even going to be a giant announcement. It is simply going to provide the heads up and say we have put a signature on the settlement.”
Antonelli, 19, is seen as a long-term prospect by Mercedes regardless of this troublesome spell in his maiden season, which Wolff had at all times stated could be a 12 months of studying for {the teenager}. The group believes he has the expertise to go on to be the subsequent famous person of the game.
