Mercedes blame Hamilton incident for Antonelli problem

A vital member of the Mercedes Formula 1 team has revealed the reason why Kimi Antonelli faced an unfortunate struggle at the Chinese Grand Prix last weekend, blaming it on an incident involving Lewis Hamilton.

The Italian youngster has gotten off to a strong start in his debut season competing at the pinnacle of motorsport, progressing as the clear winner in the battle of the rookies so far.

The 18-year-old is one of six drivers to have entered into their first full-time F1 contract for the 2025 campaign and so far, has earned points at every opportunity, meaning he currently sits in an impressive fifth place in the drivers' championship.

Antonelli replaced seven-time champion Hamilton at the Silver Arrows, with team principal Toto Wolff convinced that he is the future of the team.

Ferrari clash resulted in Mercedes Shanghai struggles

Antonelli has certainly proved himself worthy of the speedy promotion up to F1 in the early stages of the championship, but despite finishing P7 in the first sprint race of 2025, he struggled during Sunday's main event.

Speaking in the Chinese GP race debrief on Mercedes' official F1 YouTube channel, chief engineer Andrew Shovlin explained that an early incident between the Ferraris of Hamilton and his new team-mate Charles Leclerc is what impacted Antonelli negatively throughout the race in Shanghai.

"Leclerc had hit Lewis' rear tyre and that broke his front wing end plate off. Kimi saw that, but he couldn't avoid it because there were other cars either side of him, so he drove over it and that then went under the car and it damaged the floor fences," Shovlin explained.

"That was costing quite a lot of performance."

Despite the setback, Shovlin spoke highly of Antonelli's racing attitude, saying: "He was battling a bit with that through most of the race. You can tune it a bit at the pit stop, you can make a front wing adjust, but the problem is it can cause quite inconsistent effects when you've got damage on a car.

"He did a good job to deal with that but it was frustrating because I think from the pace we'd seen with Kimi this weekend, he should have been fighting with Ferraris, with Max. It would have been great to see him up there and it's also great for his learning as an F1 driver to be racing at the front."

The young star has proved himself to be capable of competing with champions such as Verstappen, but Shovlin implied that we still haven't seen the best of Antonelli.

"A bit of bad luck for Kimi there but he's really positive and looking forward to the rest of the season.”

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