Antonelli handed 'slow-down-tiger' warning ahead of Mercedes F1 debut

Juan Pablo Montoya believes Kimi Antonelli may struggle to "live up to the hype" surrounding him when he embarks on his debut F1 season with Mercedes.

The former Williams and McLaren driver feels that someone needs to "pull his reigns" and tell him to "slow down tiger" to prevent him from making too many mistakes.

The young Italian is undeniably quick, but Montoya fears he may be too crash-happy, a claim supported by the 18-year-old's accident at Monza just 10 minutes into his first FP1 session for the Brackley-based team.

"It's going to be hard for Kimi Antonelli to live up to the hype," the seven-time grand prix winner told CasinoApps. "It's going to be really hard.

"He's got enough speed to be really, really good, but with speed, accidents can happen. There's always talk that he had lots of crashes in the old cars.

"I think he's fully committed to it and if Kimi can control his emotions, understanding it might take time to perform, I think he is going to be okay.

"If he wants to come out and race and beat everyone, it can backfire really quickly. If someone can pull his reigns and say to him, 'Slow down tiger'.

"He has time where he doesn't need to put himself into bad situations. [But] I think there's a good chance he might end up in an awkward situation because he's shown how quick he can be, but he has shown he can make mistakes.

"You go fast, you crash, you don't crash, you go slow."

Striking the right balance

Montoya, who himself was known for not only his pure pace but also for being inconsistent and crash-prone during his time in F1, highlighted that Antonelli must establish the correct balance.

Whilst the Colombian views him to be susceptible to errors, he maintains the former F2 driver needs to "make the best out of" a difficult situation alongside a team-mate at the peak of his powers.

"You need to find that balance of still going fast, without going over the top," the 49-year-old explained.

"When you have someone like [George] Russell in his prime as your team-mate, who's been with the team for as long as he has been, it's not going to be easy.

"There's no priority there, nothing. This is what you have, he needs to make the best out of it.

"You're either going to be really good or have really bad and average weeks. You need to learn to make the most of those weeks.

"You have to understand why they were bad. What little differences can he make to change from average to good. If he takes the time to see these differences, he'll be able to change and react to situations in the right way."