Kimi Antonelli. Photo: Race Pictures.

Mercedes chief points to reasons behind Antonelli’s struggles

12:30, 19 Sep

bySamson Ero

Andrew Shovlin has hinted at a few reasons behind Kimi Antonelli's struggles amid his torrid run of form. The Mercedes trackside engineering director has echoed the team’s confidence in the Italian amid his challenging form, particularly through the European leg of the season.

Kimi Antonelli. Photo: Race Pictures

“When you're bringing a driver into a form this rapidly that there are going to be bumps in the road.”

- Andrew Shovlin

The British engineer who spoke to the media during the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend, detailed how a few of the changes to the W16 car have played their part in the dip in form suffered by the rookie, while reiterating that Antonelli’s early-season form had come to several individuals at the Mercedes team with a subtle surprise.

“It was certainly confusing for Kimi, and as a young driver, it's difficult. But in terms of summing it up, if we looked at the opening races, he amassed almost all of his points in that first part of the season, and he was performing better, in many ways better, than we expected.”

Shovlin also noted how the improvement from the midfield team has made the struggles of the rookie more apparent.

“You always know when you're bringing a driver into a form this rapidly that there are going to be bumps in the road. And over the course of the European season, he was finding it harder to qualify well."

"Some of that is because the mid-grid has moved closer to us, and qualifying is a pretty cruel and unforgiving session these days. And then there were a couple of mistakes where he lost free practice time, having ended up in gravel traps.”

Shovlin expresses confidence in Antonelli

The 51-year-old, however, concluded by stressing his and the team’s confidence in Antonelli. Shovlin also noted areas where the team will work with the 19-year-old to improve.

“But for us, you can still look at the first part of the season, and we're not talking about one race that he fluked; we're talking about some strong qualifying performances, some extremely strong race performances, very good handling of a wet race in Melbourne to finish fourth.“

“And we just need to work with him to try and get back to that level of comfort that he had in the car. But, as I said, qualifying, there's a lot more pressure when you know that it's difficult to get out of Q1, even, very difficult to get out of Q2, and then you've got to have tyres left for Q3.”

The words of Shovlin mirror those of teammate George Russell, who last time out at the Italian Grand Prix reiterated the team's backing for the young driver.

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