Andrea Kimi Antonelli knows that the boy is a prodigy behind the wheel and that Mercedes, especially Toto Wolff, the director of the Estrella Escudería, wants to make him the new Max Verstappen. Next to nothing. From this Sunday, in Melbourne, it is also known that the kid, only 18, knows how to overcome a slap like the one that took on Saturday, in which he could not move from the first tie of the chronicle (Q1), which he sent to the catacombs of the grid with a view to the race. Very bad news and even worse than that we consider that he was the only one of the four rookies who did not pass that first cut, despite driving the most competitive car of all of them. However, the next day, on a tormented day, and never better, the new Italian hope found a slit through which to put the nose, a little hole that led him to culebrear through the squad and to overcome all the walls that embrace the circuit of Albert Park, that which the rain turned into a mines field, to trace up to the fourth final position, just behind George Russell, his team that formed the room on the grill, 12 cars ahead of him. The rest of the debutants (Bortoleto, Doohan and Hadjar) ended up stamped on the wall.
In his frantic climb, Antonelli passed through the thousand and one. He made a spinning, an anthological overtaking to Alex Albon, drawing on the outside in a quick curve to the left, and was even momentarily penalized with five seconds, for rejoining the workshop lane irresponsibly. The punishment, which was not communicated to him on the radio so as not to influence his concentration, replied the fifth in the classification, precisely behind Albon, but Mercedes filed a resource by protecting himself in the right to review the case. With the images in front, the commissioners then estimated that the action, in which Antonelli had supposedly hindered Nico Hulkenberg, was not worthy of sanction, a circumstance that resulted in the restoration of that fourth position for the first Italian who aspires to win a Grand Prix, something that has not happened since 2006 (Giancarlo Fisichella). This result is the best for a rookie at its premiere in the contest since the second position that Danish Kevin Magnussen was awarded behind the wheel of in a McLaren, precisely in Australia, in 2014, and makes the boloñés the second most early corridor to score (18 years, 6 months and 19 days), only surpassed by Verstappen, who did it a year before him.
“I think the worst possible conditions were given for my first race. And it is clear that I made a couple of mistakes, especially when I trumpered, but the thing was very complicated, because the white lines were fatal. That is why I am very happy, ”summarized one of the protagonists of the day.
Antonelli’s crushing is a breath of air for Wolff, who played it when betting on him before the reserves of not a few members of Mercedes, who considered their promotion precipitated. During the last winter, the boy has stuck a kilometers binge behind a single -year -old steering wheel a couple of years ago, in training that impressed many of those present. It was usual to see him circling in Silverstone, where he spent more than a whole day practicing the approach to the garage and the change of wheels, a maneuver that at first was ranked. The accident he suffered during the first free trial of the Italy Grand Prix, in Monza, for forcing more than the account, still added more doubts about his maturity. That Mercedes confirmed the next day as a Hamilton substitute for 2025 was an order of Wolff, which has surely spent a few days with a throat knot for what could happen. And what happened is that his pupil square one Sunday for history, while taking off the Austrian a slab of several tons of weight.
