07/09/2025 11:10
Kimi Antonelli has revealed he felt "very tense and nervous"
heading into Italian Grand Prix qualifying, facing the 'Monza
curse.' The Mercedes driver spun off at the second Lesmo in the
opening minutes of Free Practice 2 on Friday, beaching the car for
the second weekend in a row following doing the same in FP1 at
Zandvoort. This weekend also marks a year since Antonelli's grand
prix weekend debut, when he was an FP1 rookie driver, subbing in
for George Russell, but after setting two quick sectors, crashed
heavily at Parabolica, leaving the car looking like a "Lego box"
according to boss Toto Wolff. Ultimately, Antonelli qualified
eighth fastest for his first home GP, but will start seventh after
Lewis Hamilton's grid penalty as the home favourite described how
his confidence had been knocked by his latest on-track incident on
Friday. "I am not going to lie, I felt very tense going into
qualifying . I was very nervous because of the off [on Friday], and
knowing in FP2, I lost momentum because FP1 was strong and I had
good momentum," Antonelli told media , including RacingNews365.
"In FP2, I went off super early, so I kind of lost everything and
felt like starting from zero in FP3, so it was not easy, but I was
happy with how I built the runs throughout the session. "The last
set [of tyres], it was almost purple in the lap, so I was happy
with that, and definitely, I overcame what happened in the
Parabolica last year. "That was really tough on me, and I lost a
lot of confidence in myself, so I was telling myself to: 'Try and
move on and not worry too much about the outcome' because it's been
hard for me focusing too much on the outcome and not working enough
on what I had to do."
