Mercedes ‘really appreciated’ Red Bull statement on Antonelli

Mercedes says it appreciated the statement put out by Red Bull to try and end the abuse received by Kimi Antonelli following comments by its personnel relating to his driving in the Qatar Grand Prix.

Antonelli was running fourth ahead of Lando Norris in the closing stages of the race when he ran wide at Turn 10 and lost the position on the exit of the corner. Norris gained two points compared to race winner Max Verstappen as a result of the error, but Verstappen’s race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase and Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko both suggested Antonelli let the championship leader through.

After Antonelli received online abuse and turned his social media profile photo black, Red Bull issued a statement on Monday making it clear its comments were incorrect and that it regrets the abuse received by the Italian rookie, something Mercedes deputy technical director Simone Resta says was appreciated by the team.

“For me, for us, for all the team, [the abuse is] quite disappointing,” Resta said. "And we take online abuse very seriously. With the communications team, there's a lot of work on tools and platform to create a safe area for the fans to interact with the team. On top of it, it was great to see on Monday a statement from Red Bull, stating their position. And we really appreciated this one.

“Overall, Kimi, the engineers, the team, we are all working very united to maximize our potential in Abu Dhabi and get the best possible result out there, aiming to achieve our objective, which is to finish P2 in the constructors' classification.”

Explaining how the error happened, Resta suggested the challenge of following another car closely on such a high-speed circuit as Qatar was a major factor that needs considering.

“Kimi was driving quite on the limit. He was on a longer stint than Norris behind, and also he was trying to catch up [Carlos] Sainz ahead," Resta said. "He was entering into the DRS zone, and so very close to Sainz, and… losing quite a bit of aerodynamic load with the wake effect.

"So he was trying to attack, but he also was trying to defend, and he was on the limit. And there's a snap and he lost just enough to lose position to Norris.”