Antonelli reveals his weakness he wants to address for the rest of the season
On the back of a brilliant start to his F1 career, Mercedes' rookie driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli has revealed a key area which he wants to improve for the remainder of the season.
On the back of a strong performance in Formula 2 last year, Andrea Kimi Antonelli signed for Mercedes in 2025, replacing Lewis Hamilton to partner George Russell on a one-year contract.
With his debut at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, he became the first Italian driver to compete in Formula One since Antonio Giovinazzi in 2021, the first Mercedes rookie since 1954, as well as the third-youngest driver in Formula One history at 18 years and 203 days old.
The Bologna-born driver showed great race pace in the early races, finishing in the points-paying position in four of the first five races. He then went on to claim pole position for the Miami Grand Prix Sprint, albeit dropped to seventh in wet conditions after a first-corner incident with Oscar Piastri and a pit lane collision with Max Verstappen.
When the F1 field arrived in Europe, Antonelli struggled to keep his consistency. The Italian finished outside the points in five of the following six races before finishing in tenth place at the Hungarian Grand Prix to collect a championship point.
Asked to assess the first fourteen races of his rookie season in Formula One, Antonelli conceded that he still has "so many things to learn."
"It was challenging and intense. I have so many things to learn, so many things to change in my approach. It's incredibly important to reserve enough time for yourself to then deliver the best performance in the car.
"There were some highlights, like pole position in the Miami sprint and third place in Montreal. I was steadily improving until Miami. But when we arrived in Europe, things weren't going so well.
"I lacked consistency. Overall, I'm not super happy with my performance, especially in qualifying. I know I can do better. I made good strides in the race."
Pressed on to reveal the exact cause for his qualifying woes, Antonelli stated that he is still struggling to find out how to extract the maximum from the tyres over a single qualifying lap.
"I'm still struggling to understand how much the car can do over a qualifying lap. You're so at the limit that it's quite easy to overshoot a bit. I'm still trying to find that fine line.
"The grip in qualifying is extremely high. You take the corners so much faster than in the race. And on every lap, you think: This corner is going even faster.
"I'm not at the point where I'm at the absolute limit on the first lap yet. The problem is that qualifying doesn't give you many opportunities to build up [your confidence]. On top of that, the limit is constantly changing with the conditions. I'm working on that," concluded Antonelli.
