Antonelli motivated after Wolff’s criticism: “It’s a fuel to do better”
After a difficult European phase of the season marked by errors and technical problems, Andrea Kimi Antonelli had a strong qualifying in Monza. However, mistakes compromised the weekend, prompting Toto Wolff to call his performance disappointing. The young Italian driver agrees with the assessment and sees it as motivation to perform better in the coming Grand Prix.
It is no secret that the European part of the championship brought limited satisfaction for Antonelli. Between mistakes, technical issues, and challenging moments, the Italian is now determined to leave the tough period behind and regain the brilliance he showed in the early races of the season.
Achieving this, however, requires a clean weekend—something that has been missing so far. Returning from the summer break in the Netherlands, what could have been one of his best weekends of the year, with strong race pace, quickly fell apart due to the incident with Charles Leclerc and two penalties.
In Monza, Antonelli had delivered a solid qualifying performance, finishing in the third row just behind his teammate, a result that had eluded him in other stages of the championship. On multiple occasions, he had shown strong race pace, but frequent mid-pack starts prevented him from fully exploiting his potential.
Securing a good grid position should have provided a boost, an opportunity to capitalize on. However, a clutch control error at the start pushed him back into the middle of the pack, trapping him in traffic that was difficult to escape.
At that point, Antonelli found himself disadvantaged compared to drivers who chose an alternative strategy, like Alexander Albon, who started on hard tyres, making it harder to defend his position. At the end of the Grand Prix, Toto Wolff – one of Antonelli’s biggest supporters and the person who believed in him enough to bring him into Formula 1 – candidly stated that the Italian’s weekend had been disappointing.
What weighed more than the overall performance were the mistakes: from the spin in FP2, which forced him to miss the planned race simulation and setup tests, to the start error, which pushed him back into the pack. This was compounded by a penalty for overly aggressive defence against Albon, which Wolff himself considered unnecessary given the technical disadvantage.
Discussing Wolff’s comments ahead of the Azerbaijan GP, Antonelli said he partly agreed, thanks to their open relationship. The Italian has always been very transparent in analyzing his difficulties, the problems he faced, and what he could have done better. Recognizing where to improve is a key step forward, and Antonelli clearly has the talent to shine much more than he has so far.
“I think I understand this comment. Toto and I are always very open with each other. I believe he was mainly referring to the race. Qualifying went quite well, despite the FP2 spin,” Antonelli said at the Baku press conference, referring to Wolff’s remark that his Monza performance was disappointing.
“But in the race, especially on the hard tyres, I struggled a bit. And I also made the start mistake. So I think it was mainly race-related, and I agree it wasn’t the best. But I took it positively, as fuel to do better this weekend.”
Because of the FP2 spin, Kimi Antonelli missed the race simulation, and being stuck in traffic from the start of the Grand Prix had a significant impact. Once he finally found clear track, his pace was strong, and he quickly overtook mid-pack drivers, though the strategy ultimately left him behind Alex Albon.
“I went completely blind in the race. I had no chance to feel the car with a full fuel load. So it was a bit difficult because I had to learn on the fly. And on the hard tyres I struggled to find the rhythm. It wasn’t ideal,” Kimi added, noting that FP3 had focused entirely on soft tyres with a low-fuel car.
Wolff was clear about Antonelli’s need to improve: avoid mistakes in practice that cost valuable track time and affect the entire weekend. The Italian driver agrees, and for now, this represents the central theme: a clean weekend without errors is essential to come out of the tunnel, because a strong result can be a springboard to regain confidence and consistency.
“I made many driving mistakes because, as I said, I was struggling to find the rhythm and was trying different things. And of course, Toto doesn’t want that to happen again, especially because I lost a lot of time in the race. So the conversation was quite clear.”
“He just wants me to have a clean weekend, to regain the momentum I had, for example, in the first seven races of the season, because obviously the European season has been quite tough.”
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