Antonelli arrived at Monza eager to reset following a troubled Dutch Grand Prix that had included a crash with Charles Leclerc and an off in practice.
Instead, his second consecutive error-strewn weekend raised fresh questions about his consistency in his debut F1 season.
The 19-year-old put his car in the gravel during second practice, losing valuable time to prepare for long runs. In Sunday’s race he slipped backwards immediately, dropping from sixth to 10th with excessive wheelspin off the line.
A recovery drive saw him climb to eighth on the road, but repeated track limits infringements earned him a black-and-white warning flag before a five-second penalty for forcing Alex Albon off track relegated him to ninth at the finish. Mercedes teammate George Russell finished in fifth place.
View this post on Instagram
After the race, Wolff’s assessment was notably sharper than after Zandvoort.
“Underwhelming this weekend. Underwhelming,” he said of Antonelli.
“You can’t put the car in the gravel bed and expect to be there. All of the race was underwhelming.
“It doesn’t change anything in my support and confidence in his future because I believe he’s going to be very, very, very good — but today was… underwhelming.”
Antonelli admitted his mistakes had left him on the back foot.
“I didn’t do long runs in FP2 because of my mistakes, so I wasn’t really prepared for the race,” he said. “That also didn’t help.”
Wolff pointed to a pattern of early-weekend errors limiting Antonelli’s ability to build confidence, as well as suggesting the teenager’s caution in attacking Pierre Gasly at Monza reflected lingering nerves from his clash with Leclerc in the Netherlands.
“A clean weekend means almost not to carry too much trauma of previous mistakes into the next session or into the next weekend, because that is baggage,” Wolff explained.
“You’re not going to attack the corner hard if you’ve been off there before and it finished your session.
“Or maybe you’re not attacking a driver that should not be in your way like Gasly, because he had this situation with Leclerc. Kimi shouldn’t lose even a second on Gasly.”
Despite the criticism, Wolff insisted the raw talent is not in doubt.
“He’s a great driver,” the Mercedes boss added.
“He has this unbelievable ability and natural talent. He’s a racer. It’s all there. But we need to get rid of the ballast. It’s just freeing him up. Freeing him up.”
The Italian’s Monza result leaves him eighth in the standings.
Mercedes is still to confirm its driver line-up for 2026. Wolff reiterated that Antonelli remains central to Mercedes’ future plans, though no agreement has been finalised beyond his current deal.
Discussion about this post