Mercedes boss Toto Wolff is convinced Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s maiden Formula 2 win at Silverstone will serve as a “weight off his shoulders” in the remaining races.
Antonelli embarked upon his debut campaign in F2 with much anticipation surrounding his arrival due to his sublime single-seater record and his ties with Mercedes.
The pressure on the Italian has increased since the announcement Lewis Hamilton will move to Ferrari in 2025 has seen him linked with a Mercedes Formula 1 place.
However, Antonelli sustained a sluggish beginning to his endeavours in F2 as Prema has struggled to live up to the standards it has set with the all-new 2024 chassis.
Antonelli sitting in ninth place going into the British Grand Prix had prompted Wolff to retract his earlier dismissal towards Carlos Sainz’s chances at a Mercedes seat.
But Antonelli responded to Wolff’s call to “swim” in all senses as he mastered the wet in the Sprint race to win with an 8.6-second gap despite numerous interruptions.
When asked how important Antonelli’s breakthrough success in the second-tier series was, Wolff said: “Yeah, it was.
“It was so difficult this year, because the car, you can see that, him and [Oliver] Bearman are struggling a lot with the car, and he isn’t happy with his driving.
“Not the pace in the race, but he was simply stalling twice, and that could have been avoided.
“But seeing him on Saturday, walking over the water, in the time, is bigger than everybody else, you can see the talent and the ability and the potential this young man has.
“Winning that race, he took a lot of weight off his shoulders. Today [in the Feature race] he was in DNF [due to a collision] so he wasn’t scoring.”
Antonelli’s commanding Silverstone showing has come at the right time as Mercedes continues to assess whether to promote him to the seat next to George Russell.
Mercedes began 2024 appearing destined to endure another wretched season, but the German marque has since recovered to secure successive grand prix victories.
Wolff, who has denied the team’s revival will influence its 2025 driver line-up plans, thinks Lewis Hamilton’s record-extending 104th F1 win would’ve inspired Antonelli.
“You see the greatest British driver checking out with us, the British Grand Prix, and in the garage, you have this young guy that hasn’t got a driving license yet, that was watching that scene, and at the end he thought, ‘I want to be that one day’,” Wolff added. “Maybe not here [at Silverstone], but he wants to.”
Speaking to media including Motorsport Week to reflect on his first F2 triumph, Antonelli had conceded that the expectation had been mounting on his shoulders.
“Obviously, this season, especially this year, there has been under a lot of pressure, but yeah, I have to say [Saturday] I coped with it pretty well,” he expressed.
“I think today was really the showcase and actually yeah it’s a big relief for me because it really takes away a lot of weight from my shoulders.”
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