Mercedes change approach to rescue Kimi Antonelli’s rookie F1 season

Mercedes have revealed a major change in approach to support Kimi Antonelli following his return to form at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

Antonelli finished in the top four in a grand prix for the first time since his podium finish in Montreal.

Since then, Antonelli has struggled to score points, with his weekends littered with errors.

Recently, Antonelli showed promising pace at the Dutch Grand Prix, but punted Charles Leclerc out of the race.

He was handed a 10-second time penalty as a result, dropping him out of the points.

Antonelli could only finish ninth at Monza after a messy race.

The Italian had a slow start and was overtaken by Williams’ Alex Albon.

Antonelli’s robust defence against the Williams led to criticism from Toto Wolff.

Wolff said: “Underwhelming this weekend. Underwhelming. You can’t put the car in the gravel bed and expect to be there. All of the race was underwhelming.

“It doesn’t change anything on my support and confidence in his future because. I believe he’s going to be very, very, very good. But today was… underwhelming.”

Mercedes’ change in approach

Mercedes design chief James Allison stressed the focus on ensuring Antonelli had “consistent sessions” in Azerbaijan.

Antonelli out-qualified Russell for just the second time this year.

While he wasn’t able to finish on the podium, it was still an encouraging weekend overall.

Allison explained on the official Mercedes YouTube channel: “I think the approach from all of us, really, was to make consistent sessions the order of the day, understanding with Kimi and that focus and attention on those free practice sessions is crucial for arriving in qualifying in good shape, which is crucial for making the race work out for you.

“Any slip-ups in free practice are much more costly than they appear, so the concentration on that needs to be collectively high from all of us. And Kimi certainly played a champion part in making sure that he really didn’t put a foot wrong.

“I think he went up an escape road once during the weekend, but absolutely not a scratch on his car into qualifying, which was pretty difficult. You saw how many red flags there were in qualifying.

“Kimi came through that in good nick, did a good lap. He was within one gusty corner away from being P2 on the grid and had a good weekend as a consequence.”