Mercedes share “likely” reason for Kimi Antonelli’s F1 performance dip

Mercedes suspect that Kimi Antonelli’s recent dip in F1 form is related to recent changes made to their 2025 car.

The 18-year-old Italian rookie is enduring a brutal European leg of the 2025 F1 season, having retired four times and finished well outside of the points in six of the last seven races.

Only a podium finish in Canada, Antonelli’s best result to date, breaks up the torrid run of form he has recently gone through.

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has theorised changes to the W16 have hurt Antonelli more than his experienced teammate George Russell.

"I think what you've seen in the recent qualifyings is that George is leaning on his many years of experience in an F1 car to try and make the most of a difficult car,” Shovlin said after Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.

"Kimi hasn't got that to drop back on, and that's probably why you've seen a bit of a shift in his results recently. 

"But again, it goes back to the fact we've got to solve that problem because there's still a long way to go this year. It is quite likely something that we've changed on the car, and we need to get back to a baseline where it's working more normally.

"Kimi's had a few tough weekends, but he's getting a lot of engineering support from Bono and the engineers on that side of the garage. We as a team are well aware that the thing that we need to focus on is the weaknesses in the car, not the bits that Kimi's struggling with. 

"And as I said, the fact is that George is leaning on all his experience, quite a bit of it driving difficult cars, to get the qualifying laps out of it. We're finding quite a lot of time during the session. 

"It's just because George is learning to know when he can trust the car and [he] can lean on it, but he's not getting that feeling from it inherently."

Antonelli facing ‘steep learning curve’

Antonelli was outqualified by Russell for the eighth time in a row in Belgium as he took 18th place, before only recovering to 16th in the grand prix.

He was visibly upset following his Q1 elimination at Spa and revealed he had received support from Lewis Hamilton.

But Mercedes have backed Antonelli to turn his rough patch around.

"Kimi's on a steep learning curve and he's going to be getting better as a driver," Shovlin added.

"The fact that his early performances were better than they are now is almost certainly that the car's not as competitive, and you can see that mirrored in George's results. 

"We've seen it lots of times before as well. When a young driver comes in and they're in a very good car, they can often really impress. 

"When a young driver comes in and they're in a difficult car, it's very hard to get it together week in, week out. We've seen enough from Kimi to know that there's a great deal of talent there.

"But what will help George will also help Kimi, and it will probably help Kimi more."