Toto Wolff addresses Kimi Antonelli qualifying mistake: 'He did a Kimi'

Toto Wolff has described Kimi Antonelli's mistake during his final Q3 lap as “a Kimi”, referring to his tendency to overpush when riding high on confidence.

Antonelli delivered a storming opening lap in Q3 to go well clear of the rest of the competition and put himself in a prime position to take a third consecutive pole.

However, he was forced to abort his second attempt after a mistake early on. Max Verstappen got close to besting his effort but had to settle for second, ensuring Antonelli kept the top spot.

The session drew praise from Wolff, but the Austrian acknowledged the error from Antonelli was something of a repeat offence.

“The first lap was really special,” Wolff told Sky F1.

“He was a three or four-tenths ahead of the next guy, spectacular and that made the pole.

“But then it was ‘a Kimi’. We are having confidence, and then we are overpushing it.

“That's how he is. It's already an improvement, because in the past, it would end up in the wall.

“Now it's just a missed lap. But he's just showing his speed, and that's really, really nice to see.”

Antonelli currently leads the drivers' standings in just his second F1 campaign after back-to-back victories in China and Japan.

After questions were asked over the pace at which Mercedes promoted Antonelli to F1, Wolff has defended the decision.

“You can look like a fool, or you can look well,” he said. “The junior program that we are doing is quite diligent.

“You look at his junior trajectory from mini karts all the way to F2, you see the pace, you see the speed.

“Then it just needs the development. We've given him that last year to make mistakes, and there's more to come.

“But I think he has good speed character traits.”