Andrea Kimi Antonelli has confirmed to be “a superb match” into Mercedes as Lewis Hamilton’s alternative based on trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin, who believes there may be much more to come back from the rookie.
Mercedes opted to advertise 18-year-old Antonelli after only one season of Formulation 2 following Hamilton’s change to Ferrari, marking the primary time it has run a rookie driver since returning to the game in 2010. Off the again of two top-six outcomes to begin his F1 profession, Antonelli has impressed Mercedes and Shovlin says the workforce has been having fun with serving to him ship on his potential.
“He’s a superb match within the workforce,” mentioned Shovlin (pictured above with Antonelli). “It’s troublesome to come back in after a driver who’s been as profitable as Lewis has. And for Kimi, it’s nonetheless actually early days in his F1 profession. Now fortunately, he’s obtained an especially skilled race engineer with Bono [Peter Bonnington] who’s serving to him work out easy methods to strategy the weekends and the way you construct your velocity and the way you’re employed on the automotive setup.
“Everybody within the workforce’s fairly excited to be working with him and he’s simply having fun with it. I feel in Melbourne, he couldn’t fairly consider he was really beginning an F1 race. Having your first race being a moist one, nicely, that’s significantly tough. However he’s settling into it and I feel there’s much more to come back from Kimi.”
Antonelli’s encouraging begin has mirrored that of Mercedes, with George Russell scoring two podiums within the opening two rounds, and Shovlin says the early indicators are promising for the workforce.
“We’ve proven that we’ve obtained a automotive that works nicely over a variety of circuits,” he mentioned. “What we’ve additionally seen, although, is that McLaren are most likely the workforce to beat. Max [Verstappen] is fairly fast. Ferrari actually don’t seem like they’re far behind and so they’ve had a little bit of dangerous luck. So it’s a reasonably tight struggle on the entrance.
“We’re working exhausting to try to convey growth to the automotive as a result of, as I mentioned, we expect that we have to shut that hole to McLaren specifically. However we’ve obtained three very thrilling circuits. Suzuka, that’s a improbable monitor — very flowing, very quick. A variety of drivers have that as their favourite on the calendar. First time for Kimi, although and that’s fairly a tall order for such a younger driver to be going there on their third race. However he’s excited to drive [there].
“Then on to Bahrain. We all know Bahrain as a result of we’ve been testing there. It has its personal challenges, however hopefully we’ll be at the very least within the struggle for podiums. After which Saudi Arabia. That’s a road monitor, fairly easy, once more, a comparatively new tarmac and that throws up its personal challenges.
“So, three very totally different circuits. And by the point we’ve accomplished 5, we’ll most likely get some thought as to the true order. However as I mentioned, it’s simply thrilling to begin a season with a automotive that’s working nicely, that the drivers are having fun with driving. It’s rather more predictable and we’re wanting ahead to the rest.”
