Antonelli: I am sorry to the Mercedes team and to George

Putting down a couple of impressive early markers, Antonelli was overly ambitious when he should have dialled himself in. But what might have been an invaluable one-hour run in the Mercedes lasted a couple of laps before he binned it at Parabolica. A rookie mistake and the shortest FP1 debut by a driver in memory.

'Too much, too soon, all of a sudden' for the Italian who turned 18 a week ago and mature enough to acknowledge as much in the Mercedes review of day one at Monza.

Despite the big hit, Antonelli walked away relatively unscathed and summed up his (very brief) first official F1 session: "It's been quite a day here in Monza. Unfortunately, my first FP1 session ended quite quickly with a big crash. It was measured at 52G, so it was a heavy one.

"I am not feeling 100%, so I will have an easy night this evening and rest ahead of the rest of the weekend. I am sorry to the team and to George, as it is not how we wanted the hour to go. It was a pure mistake from my side where I was pushing just a bit too hard for the conditions," conceded the teenager.

Antonelli acknowledged: "It is something I will learn from. I am still thankful to the team for making it possible for me to drive in FP1. It was great to drive in front of the Tifosi and be on track with all the other drivers," said Antonelli.

Later, he was back on duty in Formula 2. Putting the Prema Racing car in P6 in the qualifying standings. Twice a winner this year, Antonelli is P7 in the F2 standings with eight points scoring races remaining on the schedule.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff later told reporters how Antonelli reacted on returning to the pits: “He apologised first of all, and I think this is what you need to do when you bring a car back that looks a little bit like a Lego box, fallen on the floor.

“But also said that he felt so much confidence in the car; the car was good, and I guess he was just bitten. Everybody suffered from loss of temperature, especially rear temperature out of Ascari with these kinds of speed, and that’s why the rear went, the way it slipped out.”

But Wolff is keeping faith: “These moments will happen, and they will continue to happen next year, but there will also be a lot of highlights.

"I think what we’ve seen today was we rather have a problem with slowing him down rather than making him faster because from what we’ve seen from one and a half laps is astonishing," added Wolff, maybe seeing things others failed to see during those meaningless first ten minutes of running on a newly tarmac-ed, ultra-green Monza track before the excursion. (Quotes from Agnes Carlier at Monza)