What Kimi Antonelli did before Monza FP1 crash that Lewis Hamilton never matched

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New Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli’s first appearance in a Formula 1 session was short but sweet.

All eyes at Monza were on how Kimi Antonelli performed in George Russell’s Mercedes in Friday practice and how Franco Colapinto fared on his full debut for Williams.

Colapinto got the better of Antonelli for a couple of reasons, the main one being he managed to avoid crashing despite a couple of trips into the gravel.

Antonelli immediately pushed the car and set the fastest lap of the session with his first flying run.

READ MORE: Who is Mercedes academy driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli? Everything to know

His second flying lap ended at the final hairpin of the circuit as he lost the back of the car and Antonelli ended up in the barriers as a result.

Journalist Scott Mitchell-Malm was speaking on The Race Podcast and studied Antonelli’s data much more closely after the impact.

Given how different every car on the grid currently is, the only person Antonelli could be compared to was the man he’s set to replace in 2025; Lewis Hamilton.

Hamilton set the 7^th-quickest time during that hour-long session – unsurprisingly Antonelli finished last because of his crash – but showed throughout the weekend he had decent but not spectacular pace and in particular criticised his efforts in qualifying.

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However, Mitchell-Malm noticed that Antonelli’s entrance speed into the Parabolica corner was higher than Hamilton managed at any point during FP1.

If he had managed to control the car around the corner it would have been extraordinary, but it’s no wonder he ended up crashing at the same point as the safety car that weekend.

Kimi Antonelli’s FP1 data highlights his inexperience compared to Lewis Hamilton

Reflecting on Antonelli’s brief performance, Mitchell-Malm said: “It wasn’t a qualifying simulation, Antonelli turned it into a qualifying simulation by going out and pushing it, going maximum attack on the first runs.

“I laugh because it is amusing and it is that kind of over-exuberance, over-enthusiasm that we often warn of with young drivers stepping into these scenarios.

“He just couldn’t help himself. The outlap push-cool-push is bog standard at the start of FP1.

“What was really impressive about that was he had the first one was at about 95% and then the next one was like 98%.

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“You saw him really start to lean on the car more. Antonelli kind of went out about 99% at least on the first run.”

His colleague Edd Straw then asked: “What was your calculation on the exact percentage he was approaching Parabolica?”

To which Mitchell-Malm replied: “107%, I think. So, the second flying lap, I spent quite a while trying to work this out and his second flying lap into Parabolica, he braked later on that lap than Hamilton did for the entirety of FP1 and all of his push laps later on.

“He was never going to make that corner. It was an immense effort.

“It was just the inexperience of a driver who doesn’t know that you can’t push these tyres that aggressively all the way around the lap when it’s that green.”

Kimi Antonelli shares Lewis Hamilton’s advice before his FP1 run at Monza

Antonelli has been part of the Mercedes family for years and while a lot is made of Red Bull’s incredible junior set-up, the Silver Arrows that a very good success rate of finding F1 seats for their drivers.

The likes of Formula E champion Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon were supported by Mercedes and in Russell and Antonelli, Mercedes will have a pairing developed fully in-house in 2025.

Antonelli has praised Hamilton for the advice he gave him before his first run although he was unlikely to have told him to push quite as hard as he did.

That may have been partly down to adrenaline or the fact he had just completed a practice session in F2 where he would have felt he understood the behaviour of the track well.

It’s up to Wolff and those around Antonelli to help him put his brief F1 debut to the back of his mind.

He can solace from a former world champion in Sebastian Vettel, who picked up a penalty during his first F1 session six seconds into his debut.