Kimi Antonelli was “toast” after attending to family, friends in Imola F1 GP
Toto Wolff believes Andrea Kimi Antonelli was distracted by his friends and family at Imola and didn’t have the energy to focus on the race.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has revealed that Andrea Kimi Antonelli was “toast” after inviting his friends and family during last weekend’s Formula 1 race at Imola.
F1 rookie Antonelli brought 25 classmates, two teachers and several other people from his circle to the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix on 16-18 May as he competed in front of his home crowd for the first time.
While it is common for drivers to call up their family members to attend races, the 18-year-old was surrounded by a much bigger group of people at Imola.
The Italian’s actions drew criticism from 1997 F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve, who said F1 drivers shouldn’t bring “family or friends to office” as it could serve as a major distraction.
Wolff has now admitted that Antonelli and Mercedes shouldn’t have brought so many people to accompany him at Imola, conceding that it left the young Italian without any energy to focus on racing.
He likened the situation to Antonelli’s high-profile FP1 debut at Monza, which ended with him crashing into the wall at Parabolica.
Toto Wolff defends Kimi Antonelli
“This is a learning process,” said Wolff. “We concluded last year that we made a mistake by exposing him in Monza in his first ever running in FP1 to the local crowd and he wanted to perform particularly well.
“And then Imola was probably the perfect storm because it's where he lives, it's his home track. School, family, local football club, all the people that helped throughout his career, everybody wanted to have a little bit of Kimi.
“Even as early as Friday he was just toast. And I spoke to him on Saturday and he said I'm out of energy. It's clear he is young. He wants to say thank you to everyone who participated [in his career].
“He doesn't want to be unfriendly to friends, family, fans, all of them. It was also the guidance that I gave him: at a certain stage, you need to be. You need to protect yourself. Hide yourself in the engineering room on Sunday and everyone else comes second.
“All of us together, the family, realised that that was too much and this mistake we will not repeat.”
Antonelli himself conceded in the aftermath of the race that his driving was affected at Imola as he “didn’t have as much energy” as usual.
After qualifying a distant 13th on the grid, he was able to propel himself inside the top 10 but retired due to a throttle issue with 19 laps to run.
