Toto Wolff explains 'important milestone' for Kimi Antonelli

Toto Wolff maintains the Bahrain Grand Prix was an "important milestone" in Kimi Antonelli's young F1 career, despite an ultimately fruitless weekend. The 18-year-old started fifth on the grid in Sakhir, but an unfortunate confluence of events saw him reach the chequered flag in P11, the first scoreless weekend of his debut season. After being shuffled out whilst fighting Pierre Gasly through the opening corners of the race, Antonelli pulled off a number of impressive overtaking moves as he worked his way back up to where he started, including an audacious lunge on Carlos Sainz into Turn 1. However, that cooked his tyres, an issue he suffered with throughout on the abrasive Bahrain International Circuit surface, which - having not been changed since it was first laid in 2004 - is older than him. This forced Mercedes into an alternate strategy for the Italian, landing on an aggressive three-stop approach. However, the inopportune timing of the Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda-induced safety car ruined any chance of a recovery. A post-interruption tussle with the ailing Williams did not help his progress. Wolff was quick to highlight that much of the disappointing result was the consequence of bad luck surrounding the safety car intervention. Instead, he focused on the pace Antonelli showed and the lessons to be learned. "For Kimi, Bahrain was an important part of the learning curve," the 53-year-old reflected. "He showed through the weekend that he had the pace to challenge for the top-five. "He found himself out of position on the opening lap though and, as he fought back in the opening two stints, his tyres suffered. "Switching to a different strategy, he was then unfortunate with the timing of the safety car and our choices didn't give him the chance to fight back to the points." The Austrian underlined how strong Antonelli's performances have been so far this campaign, suggesting the weekend in Sakhir could be a seminal moment for the driver.   "It has been easy to forget that Kimi is in the very earliest stages of his F1 career given his performances so far," he added. "Bahrain will prove an important milestone in his continued development."