Mercedes’ recent struggle with cars in 2025 plays a role in Kimi Antonelli’s loss of confidence, believes Andrew Schovlin, director of truckside engineering.
Antoneri has only one point scoring finish in the last seven rounds. On his maiden podium in Canada, teammate George Russell won, retiring four times at that point. The Italian rookie admits he’s not confident in his car at the Belgian Grand Prix, and Shoblin says the gap between the two drivers depends on Russell’s experience when dealing with difficult machines.
“I think what you saw with your recent qualifications is that George leaned on years of experience in Formula 1 cars and trying to make the most of the difficult cars when it comes to qualifying.
“But this year there is still a long way to go, so we go back to the fact that we have to solve that problem, that is something we changed in the car and we will need to recover a bit…just go back to a baseline that is working better.
“You’ve had some tough weekends, but he’s got a lot of engineering support from Bono and the engineers on that side of the garage. We know that what we need to focus on is not the bits you struggle with, not the weaknesses of the car, but the encouragement of George to drive his experience.
“I’ve found quite a bit of time during the session, because I’m learning to know when George can trust the car.
Shovlin believes this year’s automotive development has slowed the W16 from a consistent level of performance at the start of the season, but the team says they have full confidence in Antonelli’s abilities given what they already showed when the cars were strong.
“You’re on a steep learning curve and he’ll be better as a driver. The fact that his early performance was better than it is now is almost certainly what we can see that the car is less competitive and reflected in George’s results.
“I’ve seen it many times before. When young drivers come in and they’re in a very good car, they can often be really impressed. When young drivers come in and they’re in a difficult car, it’s very difficult to do it together in a week.
“We’ve seen enough from you to know that there’s a lot of talent there. But what George can help you will probably help you more.”
