Mercedes pinpoint 'cruel' factor which hampered stunning Kimi Antonelli progress

Mercedes believes Kimi Antonelli's stunning start to his career was derailed by the "cruel and unforgiving" nature of modern F1 qualifying. 

Although he qualified 16th on his debut in Australia due to floor damage sustained, Antonelli enjoyed a fine run of performances on Saturdays, with a constant improvement from eighth in China to third in Miami. 

The Italian also grabbed Sprint race pole in Miami to become the youngest pole-winner in any format, and although he took fourth on the Canadian GP grid, his results plummeted as the European season went on. 

This culminated with 19th in Belgium, and there has been a turnaround since the summer break with 11th, sixth and fourth his results across the Dutch, Italian, and Azerbaijan GPs.

Reflecting on Antonelli's progress, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin believes Antonelli was also "confused" by the botched rear suspension upgrade introduced for Imola, which was subsequently removed from the car, as he detailed the fine margins in qualifying affecting Antonelli. 

"We're confident that [the suspension upgrade] was making the car difficult to drive," Shovlin told media, including RacingNews365. 

"It was adding performance at very specific circuits like Montreal, but it was causing more problems than it solved at tracks like Austria and Silverstone, so [removing it] is something which would have helped both drivers.

"It was certainly confusing for Kimi as a young driver, and if we look at the opening races, he amassed almost all of his points in the first part of the season, and was performing better than we expected.

"But when you're bringing a driver into F1 this rapidly, there are going to be bumps in the road, and over the course of the European season, he was finding it harder to qualify well.

"That's because the grid has moved closer to us, and qualifying is a pretty cruel and unforgiving session these days.

"Then there were a couple of mistakes where he lost free practice time, and ended up in gravel traps, but you can still look at the first half of the season, and there were some strong qualifying performances and some extremely strong race performances, like the handling of a wet race to finish fourth in Melbourne.

"We just need to work with him to try and get back to that level of comfort he had in the car, but in qualifying, there is a lot more pressure when it is difficult to get out of Q1, even more difficult to get out of Q2, and then you've got to have tyres left for Q3."