Exclusive: Toto Wolff Discusses Kimi Antonelli’s Resilience After Monza FP1 Crash and Future at Mercedes

Toto Wolff discloses his conversation with Kimi Antonelli following the FP1 incident

Crash.net's correspondent, Lewis Larkam, reports from Monza with insights from the Mercedes team leader

Toto Wolff has revealed details about his discussion with Andrea Kimi Antonelli after the Mercedes junior driver participated in his first F1 practice session at the Italian Grand Prix.

An 18-year-old driver, who is anticipated to be officially announced as Lewis Hamilton's successor at Mercedes for the 2025 season soon, experienced a high-speed accident within the first 10 minutes of his initial FP1 session with the team.

During only his second lap, Antonelli lost control at Parabolica and crashed into the barriers. The Italian driver was unharmed in the accident, which caused the session to be temporarily halted with a red flag.

Wolff mentioned that Mercedes would prefer to deal with the challenge of having to slow Antonelli down rather than having to make him quicker.

"The Austrian mentioned to the media, including Crash.net at Monza, that the most crucial thing is he is fine despite the 45G impact from the crash."

"It’s a pity as we had a full hour of running scheduled and could have witnessed some impressive performances. However, as everyone pointed out, he is inexperienced and quite young."

"We're putting resources into his future, and these instances will occur. They will keep happening next year."

"We'd prefer to deal with the challenge of reducing his speed rather than trying to increase it. The performance we witnessed over just one and a half laps was incredible."

When questioned about his conversation with Antonelli prior to the session, Wolff humorously remarked, "I told him to go all out!"

"I advised him to have fun with it. He has a great deal of innate talent, and it's crucial to remember that this is the greatest job out there. I also suggested he should try to relieve some of the pressure."

"We're in our own world here and honestly, no one cares about the first practice session. What's done is done, so let's just move forward. I told him the same thing after it ended."

Wolff mentioned that Antonelli apologized to the team upon arriving back at the garage.

"He started by saying sorry," Wolff stated. "That's the right thing to do when you return a vehicle that resembles a Lego box that's been dropped."

“However, he mentioned that he felt assured and that the car was performing well. It was simply an unfortunate incident.”

All the drivers were struggling with losing tire temperature, particularly on the rear tires coming out of Ascari at these high speeds. This loss of temperature caused the rear to slide out.

Antonelli is scheduled for another first practice session in Mexico, and Wolff expressed confidence that the young driver would recover swiftly from his initial disappointment.

"A capable driver should be able to bounce back from such challenges and handle the stress," stated Wolff.

“This weekend posed challenges for him, as he still has to participate in F2 competitions.

"Experiencing all the commotion at Monza for the first time in a Mercedes must be quite overwhelming."

“If he aims to become a world champion in the future, he must learn to handle it. I am completely confident that he has the ability to do so and that he will succeed.”

Wolff also stated that the incident would have "no impact" on the team's choice of drivers for 2025.

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