Antonelli accepts blame for Mercedes shunt but insists ‘lesson learned’

Andrea Kimi Antonelli has taken responsibility for his huge practice crash just 10 minutes into his F1 debut at Monza.

The 18-year-old took over George Russell's Mercedes for FP1 at the Italian Grand Prix, but ended up in the wall after pushing too hard going through the final corner.

The F2 driver, who is expected to be confirmed alongside the Briton for next season in the coming days, apologised to his future team and team-mate for the work he had caused.

"What a day. First FP1 done," Antonelli said in a recorded video distributed to media including RacingNews365.

"Unfortunately it ended quite quickly because of the crash. [It] was quite a big one, around 52g.

"Really sorry to the team and George [Russell] for making them work afterwards.

"Just a mistake my side, just pushing a bit too much for the conditions. [I] should have built the run a bit more progressively, but definitely a lesson learned for next time."

After getting out the stricken W15 and sitting out the remainder of his maiden FP1 session, the Italian qualified sixth for the F2 feature race on Sunday.

Focusing on the positives of a important day in his young career, Antonelli thanked Mercedes and the supporters before revealing he is "not feeling super well" after the heavy impact.

"[I'm] still really thankful to the team for making this possible, and still great to see all the Tifosi out there, and to get the first laps with all the drivers on track," the Prema F2 driver said.

"So not feeling super well at the moment, just gonna go back and try to rest and try to focus for the rest of the weekend, because there's still some racing to go, and we're going to still try to get a good result."