Kimi Antonelli reveals major F1 nerves before defeating 'Monza curse'

Kimi Antonelli has revealed he felt "very tense and nervous" heading into Italian Grand Prix qualifying, facing the 'Monza curse.'

The Mercedes driver spun off at the second Lesmo in the opening minutes of Free Practice 2 on Friday, beaching the car for the second weekend in a row following doing the same in FP1 at Zandvoort.

This weekend also marks a year since Antonelli's grand prix weekend debut, when he was an FP1 rookie driver, subbing in for George Russell, but after setting two quick sectors, crashed heavily at Parabolica, leaving the car looking like a "Lego box" according to boss Toto Wolff.

Ultimately, Antonelli qualified eighth fastest for his first home GP, but will start seventh after Lewis Hamilton's grid penalty as the home favourite described how his confidence had been knocked by his latest on-track incident on Friday. 

"I am not going to lie, I felt very tense going into qualifying. I was very nervous because of the off [on Friday], and knowing in FP2, I lost momentum because FP1 was strong and I had good momentum," Antonelli told media, including RacingNews365. 

"In FP2, I went off super early, so I kind of lost everything and felt like starting from zero in FP3, so it was not easy, but I was happy with how I built the runs throughout the session.

"The last set [of tyres], it was almost purple in the lap, so I was happy with that, and definitely, I overcame what happened in the Parabolica last year.

"That was really tough on me, and I lost a lot of confidence in myself, so I was telling myself to: 'Try and move on and not worry too much about the outcome' because it's been hard for me focusing too much on the outcome and not working enough on what I had to do."