The Monza ‘wake-up call’ that is helping star F1 2025 rookie in mid-season rebuilt

Kimi Antonelli has opened up on why he isn’t able to drive his Mercedes in the way he wants, but is confident he is making strides forward in his first season in F1.

Antonelli has had a tough middle portion of the F1 2025 season, but has shown a recent uptick in performance that suggests the worst may be behind him.

Kimi Antonelli: I’m changing the way I drive

After a strong start to his maiden campaign in F1, the young Italian began struggling through the middle portion of this season, admitting to not driving naturally and overthinking his way to a barren spell that saw him score just 16 points across nine weekends after scoring 48 across the first six.

But Antonelli has returned to consistent points scoring over the last three races, starting with a ninth-place at his home race at Monza before he finished two seconds off the podium in Baku with fourth place. In Singapore, he raced to fifth as Mercedes teammate George Russell used his experience to take pole position and the victory.

While Antonelli is clearly being bested by Russell, the Italian feels he’s in a better place mentally than he was in the middle portion of this season, having seemingly figured out the reasons why he hasn’t been able to deliver at his full potential.

Some of this, he said, is down to the fact he’s figuring out how to adjust his driving style to cope with the areas of an F1 car that don’t gel with his requirements.

“I still feel I cannot drive the car the way I want,” he told the media in Singapore.

“My driving style is quite aggressive. I tend to throw the car into the corner. This is when I have the confidence, but it seems like, with this generation of cars, you can’t really do that.

“Maybe because of the way the aerodynamics work, the tyres, these cars are very sensitive to wind, so the car is very sensible.

“The limit is so high that, once you pass it, it flips. The limit is just so high, but then, when you go over it, you have nothing.

“So the car is just super unpredictable, really, really hard to control.

“With these cars, I’m still trying to change a little bit the way I drive, because still, when I have the confidence, I start to throw the car into the corners, and then the problem starts to reappear.

“So what I’m trying to work on is adjusting my driving style a little bit. Not changing completely because, in some corners, the car can take it, but, in other corners, it cannot.

“It’s about trying to understand the moment where you can ask the car for more, the corners where I can apply my driving style, and the corners where I cannot.

“So it’s still not fully natural, but I’m doing the steps in the right way.”

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With Singapore marking his third improved weekend in a row, Antonelli said another factor that he’s struggling with is controlling his excitement when he knows he has a strong car under him.

At Marina Bay, Russell stuck his car on pole position to highlight the W16’s potential, but Antonelli went four-tenths of a second slower, having only been a tenth off Russell through Q1 and Q2.

“It was the third weekend in a row where, in qualifying, we were strong. We’re finding our rhythm,” he said.

“The positive thing was the first time at this track, it was nice to get up to read to the rhythm pretty quickly.

“I felt strong in Q1 and Q2, I could see it, it was there. Just missing out was a shame.

“I like to make my life harder overall. I saw I had a real shot at least at the front row, and it’s just a shame because the car was there and we had the pace, and I felt very strong.

“But, in Q3, let’s say my emotions took over because I was really excited, and I really felt it was possible. But then I didn’t drive very well. I made way too many mistakes, and then I just started to drive tensely because I wasn’t doing clean laps.

“Just driving tense again, but it was a very good learning for the future.

“I’m a bit more relaxed in the car, and also focusing much more on the process, on what I have to do. Q3 was another big learning for the future, because sometimes just doing a little bit less brings you more.

“In Q3, I went beyond the car and grip potential and was just asking too much, and just ended up making mistakes.”

Antonelli is yet to be formally confirmed as a Mercedes driver for F1 2026, although Toto Wolff has confirmed the team’s intent to stick with its current drivers. Certainly, there are no indications from either that they are worried about their futures with the team, and Antonelli revealed he had a meeting after Monza in which he got a good “wake-up call” to help him on his path.

“I had a big meeting with the team, a strong one, and it was a good wake-up call. It was good because it gave me a little reset after that,” he said.

“I started to focus on different things before. I was focusing too much on the final result, and I wasn’t focusing on the process.

“I wasn’t focusing on driving well and trying to do everything right. So definitely, I think it was good. It was a good wake-up call after Monza.

“Now we’re in a positive trend, so the goal is to keep improving and keep developing.

“Baku was definitely what I needed in terms of a result, because it kind of switched the momentum, switched the negative trend up until there, and I really need a good result.

“Now, the goal is to make these results consistent and try to perform even better. But definitely, Baku was really good, and I was really annoyed after the race, because I really wanted a podium, and I was just so close for the whole race.

“But, overall, you know, after a couple of days, I look back at the whole weekend, and I think it was very positive. In terms of approach and preparation, it was a good standard.”

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