Kimi Antonelli points to what’s stopping him “unleashing full potential”

Kimi Antonelli says he is still searching for the key to unleash his “full potential” in F1.

The 18-year-old Italian is enduring an up and down rookie season since being promoted from Formula 2 after just a single campaign to replace seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes.

Antonelli kicked off his debut F1 campaign with a brilliant fourth place in a chaotic and rain-affected Australian Grand Prix, and has had further highs by claiming a maiden pole for the Miami sprint race, and finishing on the podium for the first time in Canada.

But there have been lows too. Antonelli has suffered a brutal run of results throughout the European leg of the season and failed to score in all but two of the eight races since Imola, as well as retiring three times.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Crash.net and RACER at the recent Belgian Grand Prix, Antonelli opened up about the contrasting emotions he has felt across his first 14 F1 races.

"Definitely in some ways I exceeded what I was expecting,” Antonelli explained in Mercedes’ motorhome in the Spa-Francorchamps paddock. “Definitely I didn't expect to get pole that early or to get the podium.

“Of course, the mindset is always to go there and win, going in to the season, you're super excited and you're like, ‘oh, I'm going to go there and try to win [the] first race’.

“The first start, I was very nervous. But then obviously, once you have a better picture, you also start to be a bit more realistic of the situation and you start to see where you have to work.

“So definitely, in some way, I exceeded my expectation, even though the goal is always the same one, which is winning. In other ways, I feel like I've been underperforming.”

Kimi Antonelli aiming to strike the right balance

Antonelli believes his “too conservative” approach has limited his potential so far this season.

Ever since suffering a high-speed crash during his F1 practice debut at Monza last year, Antonelli has been struggling to get the balance right between finding the limit, but not going over it.

“I think in some weekends, I've been even a bit too conservative on the approach, because I'm trying to get as much mileage as possible to make as much learning as possible,” he said.

“It’s like having a lock, and I feel like I haven't been able to unleash my full potential because of this. Now that I've experienced the situation more in hand, I'm trying to have a bit of a different approach and trying to now explore more the limit.

“If the mistake happens, it's okay, as long as I have a better understanding of where the limit is of the car and how much I can push it, then it's going to help me for the future.

“But in the situation where I am now, I still don't know how much more the car can give. I know the car can give me quite a bit more, but I don't know how much more. So the thing I'm trying to do now is to try to explore more this limit.

“A bit less conservative approach and trying to push more in order also to arrive more ready for qualifying, because I feel like recently I've been arriving to qualifying with too many question marks.”

Asked by Crash.net if this has been the biggest challenge of his rookie campaign, Antonelli replied: “Yeah.

“I feel like my race pace has been improving substantially over this first half of the season. I'm able in the race pace to feel much easier and to feel in a much quicker way the limit and how much the car and the tyre can give me. But also because the car is heavier, grip is a bit lower, so it's sliding a bit more around. So it's also a bit easier to feel where the limit is.

“In qualifying, it's all to push to the extreme. The car is at its lightest of the weekend, full power, new tyre and the track has the most amount of grip. So the potential is just so high that it takes a little bit of time to understand where this potential is.

“Of course, I could have an approach where I send it and it's like, make it or bin it. But that is not really the approach I want to have.

“I want to be in control and to really understand and know until what point I can push the car and to really get to that fine line where I don't go over, but I'm on the absolute limit. So that's what I'm trying to do now and trying to understand.

“When it comes to race pace, I don't feel I have this lock. Of course, I'm not fully there, but I'm much closer. In qualifying, I'm still finding this key to unlock the full potential.”

When directly asked by Crash.net how close he feels to finding the key, Antonelli responded with a smile: “That’s a one million dollar question.

“I think in those races where the car has been really good; so Miami qualifying, also Suzuka was really good, I think especially in the race, Canada was really good… I've had the confidence in the car and I was able to get closer to unlock myself.

“But then when the car has been a bit more challenging, I've been struggling to unlock myself. And I've been struggling to really find the confidence to push it. So for me now, it's important as well to really find the confidence and to really trust the car, even when it's more challenging.”