Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has indicated that the team will avoid making Andrea Kimi Antonelli “suffer,” after a run of “subpar” Formula 1 races.
The Italian has enjoyed a largely positive first season in F1, currently sitting in seventh place in the Drivers’ Championship.
His highlights have included pole position for the Miami Sprint Race, and his first Grand Prix podium at Canada last month.
But since his Montreal display, things have gone awry for the teenager, which initially began at the Austrian Grand Prix.
A first-lap in which he took out Max Verstappen saw him handed a grid penalty for the following race at Silverstone, in which he was taken out of contention by fellow rookie Isack Hadjar.
The outcome of both races left Antonelli a dejected figure, telling media including Motorsport Week afterwards: “It seems like everything is going wrong at the moment and it’s hard to find some positives.
“I’m not super happy to be honest, too many zeroes scored. [Since] Canada I’ve been trying, I’ve been struggling to find some positives to be honest.
“It feels like nothing is really working on our way and just need to focus and reset and try to find again the light at the end of the tunnel because definitely I’m not going through a nice moment.”
Mercedes needs ‘simplification’ to help Antonelli recover his season
Wolff is aware of what is needed to enable Antonelli to rediscover his early-season form, and one key factor will be ensuring he does not feel pressure from the team itself.
“It’s been a rough run since Montreal,” the Austrian said. “Two races that were really subpar and everybody feels that way in the team.
“And for Kimi also. I think as a team we need to go back to a baseline. He’s a great driver; there’s a reason why we took him. And as a team we know what we’re able to achieve and reconcile, reset properly and then take it from there.
“There’s two more races to go and try to bounce back.”
Wolff said he was not angry with the outcome at Silverstone, putting blame onto the team for an incorrect strategy amid the changing weather conditions.
“Even until today I am OK with what happened,” he said. “The first stop was a strategy blunder. We should have not brought him in.
“To be fair enough, he can’t really say that’s wrong, because of his lack of experience. So he was put in an impossible position.
“Then he had the shunt with Hadjar and that was basically it. It’s just important now to keep him in a good frame of mind and not make him suffer or blame himself too much.”
Wolff acknowledged that he will be receiving more in terms of data and feedback than he ever has in other series of racing, and that the team will need to make this as simple for him as possible to focus on his driving.
“I’m not sure he’s trying too hard. I think he wants to do well,” he said. “And obviously there’s a tonne of information that’s coming down on him.
“And his way of trying to extract the best from the car and I think saying, ‘OK, I know I can drive – what is it I need to do for that to come back?’
“The whole work for us as a team and for the drivers is simplification. We are overthinking.”
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