Rosberg calls on ‘calculated’ Wolff to give Antonelli a new contract after Monza criticism

Perplexed by Kimi Antonelli’s struggles, Nico Rosberg believes Toto Wolff would get a lot more out of the Italian by confirming him for next season than he would be publicly critising him.

Antonelli has endured a challenging rookie F1 season with Mercedes after his early form gave way to a spate of retirements.

Nico Rosberg’s advice for Toto Wolff and Kimi Antonelli

Although Mercedes team principal Wolff initially brushed it aside as part of the learning experience, backing his driver to bounce back, a P9 at the Italian Grand Prix saw Wolff turn critical of the driver for the first time.

On the back of a disappointing Dutch Grand Prix in which Antonelli was slapped with two penalties for crashing into Charles Leclerc and speeding in the pit lane, the Italian and Mercedes had hoped for a better outcome at Monza.

An off in FP2 cost the Italian valuable track time, however, he bounced back to qualify seventh, one position behind his teammate George Russell. But in the race, he lost ground to the Briton to finish ninth, 27s down on fifth-placed Russell.

Wolff wasn’t happy.

“Underwhelming this weekend, underwhelming,” he told PlanetF1.com’s Thomas Maher and other media outlets of Antonelli’s performance. “He can’t put the car in the gravel bed and then to expect to be there. All of the race was underwhelming.”

But while Wolff did go on to say that it “doesn’t change anything on my support and confidence in his future, because I believe he’s going to be very, very, very good”, Rosberg has questioned his former team principal’s handling of the 19-year-old.

Kimi Antonelli v George Russell: F1 2025 head-to-head stats

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

“Yeah, it’s a surprising one,” he told Sky Sports’ F1 Show, “because at the moment, the only choice you really have is just give Kimi the most time possible, in the most calm way possible, and that means also not criticising him publicly.

“And so this change of tone from Toto for the first time ever. Phew. Usually, there’s a reason behind that. Toto is very calculated in his comments. Perhaps he’s wanting to put some pressure on Kimi and his family to try a different approach, modify their approach, review their approach.

“Not, yeah, not sure there.

“But the fact of the matter is that Kimi is a generational talent. We all know that, but it’s more difficult for him than we all thought so far. And it’s a bit strange that it’s still so difficult.

“Like, if you look at the statistics, in racing it’s 19 to zero to George, and in qualifying it’s 17 to two to George.

“So it’s a bit… I don’t know. It’s a really hard one and an unfortunate one, because we all want him to go well. He can go well, we know that it’s… yeah I don’t know.

“But the clock starts to tick at some point also, you know?”

Rosberg believes Wolff would be better advised to give Antonelli a new contract for next season, something that the Austrian says is a done deal but that there will be no big press conference or such fanfare.

Wolff simply said, “I don’t think it’s going to be even a big announcement. It’s just going to give you the heads up and say we’ve put a signature on the agreement.”

But until that heads up comes, there remains uncertainty surrounding Antonelli’s fledgling F1 career, Russell’s too.

“I said a couple of weeks or months ago, give him the contract,” said Rosberg, “because you need to give him whatever you can at the moment just to help him with his confidence. So give him the contract.

“Anyways, you know that in F1 in the worst, worst case, you can still get out of that then during the winter, but you obviously don’t have to say that now. So yeah I would also consider that.”

Nico Rosberg ‘might write’ to Kimi Antonelli

But Wolff isn’t the only one Rosberg is happy to advise; he’s also willing to impart words of wisdom to Antonelli having learned several tough lessons himself during his years racing Lewis Hamilton for the titles at Mercedes.

The German reckons Antonelli shares similar character traits to Lando Norris, who he offered to help in the past as the Briton beat himself up over his mistakes on the track.

“It’s a tough one, my goodness,” Rosberg continued. “He’s kind of a personality like Lando, or like myself if I may add myself to this – more vulnerable, more sensitive, more dwelling on the negativities, scared of not being good enough, scared of not doing well enough.

“And he’s doing the same little unfortunate thing that Lando does like when Lando communicates so much around his mistakes.

“We had him on the Sky microphone after qualifying, and by all means, the qualifying was fantastic. He was only four-hundredths from George Russell, so great qualifying. Could have just focused on, ‘hey, that was good, yeah, I’m really happy, I felt better for the first time in qualifying, really happy to be right there with George’.

“But instead he spent most of the time speaking about that mistake in FP2, ‘it’s still hanging in there for me now, and I need to try and find a way to avoid that’.

“And that’s something where someone needs to tell him that as well, because it’s something you can actually quite easily adapt. You just said, ‘Hey, Kimi, something that could help you also just focus on the good things from now on going forward.

“‘Don’t repeat, talk about anything that happened in the past that’s negative when talking to media, because it has an impact, and it’s a wave that you’re pushing on all the time. So just go positive’.

“You know what? I might actually write him, why not? I don’t have his number, but I’ll write him somehow, because that’s easy advice.”

Advice that Rosberg once offered Norris.

Asked if the Briton ever go back to him, Rosberg replied: “No, but Lando is doing it. He’s got it. He’s working with a psychologist. He’s eliminated all of social media, as he said, he’s not looking at that anymore. So he’s actually implemented a lot of these things.

“I’m not saying he read me my message or whatever, but he’s making a lot of progress, which is great to see.”

Read next: Max Verstappen’s first words after Nordschleife permit ruling