01/09/2025 14:35
Toto Wolff believes Kimi Antonelli just needs to be "unpeeled like
an artichoke" following a disastrous Dutch Grand Prix. Antonelli
incurred three penalties during the Zandvoort race, with one
10-second time penalty for causing a collision with Charles
Leclerc, before then being handed a five-second penalty for
speeding in the pit-lane. Post-race, the Italian was then handed
two penalty points on his superlicence for the Leclerc incident and
fell from sixth on the road to 16th in the final results on a
tricky weekend, having beached the car early in FP1 on Friday.
Antonelli is set to retain his seat for 2026 alongside George
Russell, but his form of late has been called into question with
just two points finishes in the last eight races. However, Wolff
is adamant that the "gold" of Antonelli will be unearthed, given
the protege's talent, with the Austrian believing a simple "hug and
cuddle" is required. "You always wish the learning had fewer humps
and bumps because the swings are enormous," Wolff told media,
including RacingNews365. "But he is there, he just needs to be
unpeeled like an artichoke, where there is the gold, my analogies
are not great, but you know what I mean. "We have no doubt, and in
a way, that is why we're taking it with a certain ease, as we're
not fighting for a world championship, we're fighting for P2 and
P3, so I can cope with it easier than if it were for a
championship. "What we forget is the decision we took to put an
18-year-old in the car who barely had two-and-a-half years of
single-seater racing in him. "He is still a boy that we've thrown
into this environment, and you just want to hug and cuddle him
because he has the talent, the raw speed is in him, and he copes
well. "I guess he doesn't see the big catastrophe in beaching the
car five minutes into FP1, so there are positives and negatives,
but we were conscious he was an 18-year-old rookie when we put him
in the car, and that combination certainly gives us some harsh
moments."
