Andrea Kimi Antonelli's long anticipated Formula 1 debut for Mercedes started promisingly but then went horribly wrong, with the 18-year-old accepting that it was his fault he ended up in the wall in practice at Monza.
The current F2 racer is hotly tipped to take over Lewis Hamilton's seat next year, but his first audition on the big stage didn't go well when he lost control heading into the Parabolica corner just ten minutes into FP1.
As well as leaving him somewhat shaken, the accident also damaged the new floor that the team was hoping to run back-to-back comparison tests on. Lengthy repairs to the W15 meant George Russell lost track time in the car in FP2.
“What a day - first FP1 done,” Antonelli said in a video message distributed to the media that was recorded later in the day. “Unfortunately it ended quite quickly because of the crash.
“It was quite a big one, around 52g,” he reported. "Just a mistake by my side, just pushing a bit too much for the conditions. I should have built the run a bit more progressively.
"Definitely a lesson learned for next time," he acknowledged. “Really sorry to the team and George for making them work afterwards.
"I'm really thankful to the team for making this possible. It was great to see all the Tifosi out there, and to get the first laps with all the drivers on track."
Antonelli had been expected to be present for media duties in the evening, but ended up recorded the video comments after reporting that he didn't feel well after the high impact.
“I'm not feeling super well at the moment, I'm just going to go back and try to rest and try to focus for the rest of the weekend, because there's still some races to go [in F2], and we're still going to try and get a good result.”
Despite not feeling well, Antonelli still took part in qualifying for the F2 support race and will start from sixth place on the grid for tomorrow's feature event.
There had been rumours that Mercedes would use the occasion of an Italian driver making his F1 debut in Italy to confirm that Antonelli would join them full time in 2025, but the accident isn't exactly how they'd hoped to set it up.
Even if it doesn't happen this week, it doesn't seem to have changed anything for Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff with regard to his plans for the driver line-up for next season.
“He’s a rookie, he’s very young, we are prepared to invest into his future,” Wolff insisted. "A strong driver needs to recover from these things and cope with the pressure. I have no doubt that he can and he will."
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