For Kimi Antonelli the Zandvoort/Monza Formula 1 double header could hardly have gone any worse.
At both venues the teenager lost a practice session to a mistake, and then in both of the races he picked up a time penalty following an incident with a rival.
While team mate George Russell logged a fourth and a fifth place across the two weekends Antonelli’s only contribution to the Mercedes total in what is a closely-contested constructors’ battle was a ninth in the Dutch event.
Indeed since his solid third place and maiden podium in Canada back in June he’s scored just three points in six events, leaving his total at 66 compared to the 194 of Russell.
Obviously he’s a rookie, and as such there’s some leeway and a honeymoon period. Mistakes are inevitable, and part of the learning process. However Miami qualifying aside there arguably have been few signs of the sort of stellar performances that the true future greats typically show in their very early days.
Meanwhile fellow rookies Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto have both done an eye-catching job of late, and both men appear to be making progress each week, maximising their potential and making few errors.
It’s true that it’s easier to shine in an underdog team when you don’t face the sort of intense spotlight that Antonelli is under. Nevertheless both have shown the world what a newcomer can do with a 2025 car.
Monza was particularly poignant in that it came a year after Antonelli’s infamous FP1 gaffe at Parabolica in his first public appearance with Mercedes, which was followed the next day by confirmation of his race seat for 2025.
Going off in FP2 on the anniversary – just a week after a similar mistake in FP1 at Zandvoort – put him on the back foot. It didn’t impress team boss Toto Wolff, who gave a remarkably candid summary after the flag.
“Underwhelming this weekend,” said the Austrian. “You can’t put the car in the gravel bed and then expect to be [up] there. And all of the race was underwhelming.
“It doesn’t change anything in my support and confidence in his future, because I believe it’s going to be very, very good. But today, he was underwhelming.”
Losing a practice session is always tough for a rookie. Precious mileage cannot be reclaimed, and it means that the programme for the rest of the weekend is compromised.
Antonelli still qualified a decent P7 at Monza, just behind Russell, and it looked like he would make amends.
He gained a further spot from Hamilton’s penalty, but a bad start dropped him to P10 on the first lap. His tentative progress thereafter hinted at him trying to be super careful not get into any more scrapes after his clumsy contact with Charles Leclerc in Zandvoort.
That didn’t work out as he picked up a penalty for leaning a little too hard on Alex Albon. In the end it only cost him one place, and he dropped from eighth to ninth in the final classification.
“Apparently, I pushed him off track,” he said of Albon. “So I don’t know, to be honest, I need to look at it. But yeah, it’s a shame. But I think the race was compromised with the start. I got wheelspin straight away and just lost a lot of places.
“I’m happier about quali pace, which was strong, just a shame with the start that I did a mistake and lost a lot of places. So just need to work on that, and try to do better in Baku.”
He admitted that the FP2 error had been costly: “As I said, quali pace was better, which was good. That was much closer as well to George, but in the race… I didn’t do long runs in FP2 because of my mistake, so I wasn’t really prepared for the race.
“When you miss a full practice, especially in FP2, which is usually is quite important, because it’s where, also the track is the closest in terms of time and temperature to qualifying.
“FP1, yeah you do long runs, but the track usually is quite green, so the deg is a bit different, while FP2 is more representative. And just didn’t do the long run in the most important session.
“And I did a long run, FP3, but it was with soft tyres, which was quite irrelevant. So yeah, that was penalising, mostly for the race.”
“Looking to the next few races, it’s going to be important to have a clean weekend from FP1 all the way to FP3, and in order to be ready for quali and then races.”
Wolff agrees that that is just what Antonelli needs, although both upcoming tracks in Baku and Singapore are far from easy.
At the moment the problem seems to be that he’s overdriving, trying so hard not to make mistakes that inevitably they happen anyway.
“I think a clean weekend also means almost not to carry too much trauma, previous mistakes, into the next session, into the next weekend,” said Wolff. “Because that is luggage.
“You’re not going attack the corner hard if you’ve been off there before and finished your session, or maybe you’re not attacking a driver that you know should not be in your way. Like Gasly, Kimi shouldn’t even lose even a second to Gasly.”
So what’s the answer?
“I think just freeing him up,” said Wolff. “He’s a great driver. He has this unbelievable ability and natural talent. He’s a racer, it’s all there. But we need to get rid of the ballast.”
He still has eight races and a third of the season to go. He’s raced in Baku and Doha in F2, and tested current or TPC F1 cars at several of the remaining venues, but there are others that will be new to him – although ironically some of his best weekends this year have been at places he didn’t know. It’s now in his hands to show the sort of spark that Wolff and Mercedes expect.