Wolff: We mustn't forget Antonelli's 18 years old

Mercedes fast-tracked Antonelli through the junior ranks, making him skip Formula 3, and then promoted him to their Formula 1 team to replace Lewis Hamilton in 2025 while he was still racing his maiden Formula 2 season.

Antonelli had a decent start to his rookie F1 season, taking fourth in a wet and chaotic Australian Grand Prix, and showed steady progress from there, taking pole for the Miami Spring Race and following that up with a podium in Canada, where his teammate George Russell won.

But then the Italian's form has been dropping, which coincided with Mercedes' suspension upgrade to the W16, which backfired with both its drivers lacking confidence in the car.

For the Hungarian Grand Prix, the final race before the F1 summer holidays, Mercedes reverted to an older specification suspension, which Russell used well to take third, having qualified fourth.

Antonelli, on the other hand, qualified 15th and finished the race in tenth and said afterwards: “It was tough, it was tough.

"First of all, it was not the plan to do one-stop. But then, considering the position where we were, we decided to just keeping going given the pace was quite decent.

"Especially when I was in free air, we were able to improve the time and be consistent. But yeah, it was difficult; it was difficult. Happy to have brought home the first point of the European season.

"I am really happy that my confidence in the car has come back this weekend," he added. "I leave Budapest feeling much more comfortable after moving back to the previous rear suspension. Yesterday’s qualifying was just a shame, as the pace was clearly there.

"We can take this feeling into the second half of the season and look forward to it with optimism now," Antonelli concluded.

As for Wolff, he discussed Antonelli's form in a recent Mercedes video debrief; he commented: "Kimi obviously started very strongly with a race that was fantastic under wet conditions and some spectacular overtakes on the Sunday.

"All of us have never doubted his performances. We knew there would be ups and downs—that's part of the development curve.

"In Miami in the sprint qualifying, he had his first pole, and that was completely on merit. The next highlights followed, with a podium in Montreal.

"We mustn't forget he's 18 years old, and he's going to learn a lot. He's going to make mistakes—and on other days he's going to be brilliant. Long-term, that’s what just is completely normal," the Austrian concluded.

Antonelli is currently seventh in the 2025 F1 Drivers' Championship with 64 points. Russell, on the other hand, is fourth with 172 points.