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Antonelli vows to bounce back from Wolff criticism / Photo: © AFP
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Antonelli vows to bounce back from Wolff criticism
Mercedes' highly-rated rookie Kimi Antonelli on Thursday acknowledged team boss Toto Wolff's criticism of his 'underwhelming' outing at the Italian Grand Prix and said he understood.
The 19-year-old Italian vowed he would work to improve on his performance at Monza where he was classified ninth after collecting a five-second penalty following a race in which he struggled with his hard tyres.
"Underwhelming this weekend. Underwhelming," Wolff told reporters in Italy. "You can't put the car in the gravel bed and expect to be there... All of the race was underwhelming."
Antonelli responded saying he regarded the criticism as motivation to deliver a much stronger and more disciplined showing at this weekend's Azerbaijan Grand Prix after a run of poor results.
He started the season by finishing fourth and sixth, four times, before securing his first podium finish in Canada in June, but since then he has crashed twice and finished outside the points twice with one tenth and one ninth.
"I think I pretty much understand his comments," said Antonelli said. "Me and Toto are always very open to each other and we talk to each other quite openly. I think it was mainly about the race.
"Qualifying was actually pretty good despite the off in FP2. In the race, especially on the hard tyres, I struggled a little bit.
"And also, you know, I did the mistake at the start. I think it was mainly related to the race, which I agree with the comments, that wasn't the best. I took it positively, as fuel to do even better for this weekend."
He added that he felt it was imperative for him to "first of all, just try to have clean sessions...In Monza, I went off in the FP2 super-early on and ended up not doing any long runs.
"So, I went completely blind into the race. I didn't get to feel the car on high fuel at all, so it was a bit difficult as I had to learn in the moment. I struggled to find my rhythm so that wasn't ideal.
"My main goal is to have clean sessions and get as many laps as possible in the bag and deliver the job in qualifying and in the race."
V. Duarte--JDB
