Merc failures ‘have taken a few chunks’ out of Antonelli

Failures that resulted in Kimi Antonelli failing to score a point during Formula 1's trio of back-to-back races “have taken a few chunks” out of the rookie, admits Mercedes technical director James Allison.

Antonelli dropped out in Q2 and then failed to finish his home race at Imola due to a reliability issue, before crashing in qualifying in Monaco and being limited to a race stuck in traffic. The Italian then was on for solid points in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix before a power unit failure forced him to retire, and Allison says it hasn’t been an easy spell for the 18-year-old.

“Kimi's young and full of all the optimism of youth, but I absolutely know that our failures in this period have taken a few chunks out of Kimi along the way,” Allison said. “Two DNFs, one caused by a chassis problem, one caused by a PU problem in just three races. That's a pretty tough pill to swallow.

“Leaving that aside, and Kimi looking in at himself, he will know that he's got more to find. But in amongst that, there's been a lot of very positive work with him and brilliant experience for him running on a very dynamic track like it was in Barcelona, with the track temperatures pushing up towards 50 degrees (122F) and managing soft tires in those conditions. That is just putting experience into him at a very fast rate, and he was handling it pretty well.”

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Allison admits there could be some more challenges for Antonelli ahead as a result of the lost power unit, that could leave him facing a grid penalty at a future race.

“It puts some pressure on the pool. We could put in a new power unit next race weekend, suffer no penalties, because we're still below the maximum number you're allowed to use in a year without penalty," he noted. "But, of course, we're only about a third of the way through the year, so that's going to put quite a strain on the remainder of the pool if we have to eke it out until the end of the year.

“So, we'll be just eyeballing up how to marshal those remaining resources in a good way. But, yes, it's obviously no fun when a power unit comes out of the pool before delivering its full life.”

Despite those issues, Allison says Mercedes sees reasons to be optimistic about its potential in upcoming rounds because it learned how to set its car up better for high temperatures in Spain.

“I think the more important thing of these three races was we got the first couple pretty wrong on the way that we set the car up," he admitted. "Asked too much of the rear axle, suffered badly as a consequence, and we approached Barcelona with something of a different mindset.

“And on a track which would have murdered our tires if we’d gone at it like we did in Imola and Monaco, we actually were a bit more ourselves. So, looking forward and knowing that we can do more of that and lean deeper into that in the races ahead, I think that’s a good thing.”