Andrea Kimi Antonelli has had the best start to the 2025 season among all the rookies. After finishing an outstanding fourth in Australia, while many of his fellow debutants crashed due to the treacherous conditions, the Italian secured a P6 finish in China. It could have been even better.
Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director, felt Antonelli could have finished higher up the order in Shanghai had it not been for the collision between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. After Leclerc made contact with Hamilton’s rear tire on the opening lap, the Monegasque’s front wing end plate broke off.
Although Antonelli could see the plate coming off Leclerc’s Ferrari, he could not take evasive action because there were cars on either side of him. So, the 18-year-old drove over the plate. That damaged the floor fences of his Mercedes.
Shovlin said it is difficult to quantify the exact amount of pace lost on the W16 after the incident. He speculated that it would have been in the range of two to three-tenths of a second per lap. The British engineer revealed that there were more factors at play in the performance loss as the damage affected the rear of Antonelli’s car.
“The other problem was it’s not evenly distributed across the car,” Shovlin explained on Mercedes’ YouTube channel.
“You’d have heard Kimi come on the radio relatively early on and say to Bono [his race engineer], ‘I’ve got no rear grip, mate’. And what he meant there is that more of the downforce was missing from the rear axle,” he added.
Since downforce was missing from his rear axle, it caused the rear tires to slide and heat up more. This, in turn, led to Antonelli losing grip during most of the race.
The Italian did a brilliant job to finish eighth on the road with this handicap. This was before he was promoted two places after Leclerc and Hamilton were disqualified. It showed how Antonelli can keep his nose clean to eke out the best possible result even in tough situations.
Is Antonelli the best of the rookies?
Since all six rookies are driving different cars this season, it is unfair to judge their performances based on results. But in terms of consistency, Antonelli seems to have the edge.
The Italian has managed to finish in the points in all the races (sprint and Grand Prix) he has competed so far.
Kimi Antonelli. F1's second youngest points scorer in history 👏#F1 #AusGP pic.twitter.com/gY6AnwyPYY
— Formula 1 (@F1) March 16, 2025
Haas’ Oliver Bearman, on the other hand, seems to have had a mixed start to the 2025 season. After finishing a disappointing 14th out of the 14 classified finishers in Australia, he bounced back to clinch P8 in China, scoring four valuable points.
Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto has had a disappointing start to the 2025 campaign. Coming off winning the F3 and F2 titles in consecutive seasons, he came to F1 as one of the most hyped rookies. However, he crashed in Melbourne and had an average P14 finish in Shanghai.
Jack Doohan is also in the same boat as Bortoleto. The Alpine rookie crashed out of his home race in Australia before finishing 13th in Shanghai.
Although Isack Hadjar also had a crash in Australia — that too, on the formation lap — he showcased a promising pace during the Chinese GP weekend. The French-Algerian managed to out-qualify Yuki Tsunoda in his second race weekend in Shanghai. Given that Tsunoda has got a Red Bull call-up and has performed exceptionally well in the past two seasons, it is quite a feat.
The man Tsunoda is replacing at the Bulls — Liam Lawson — is also technically a full-season rookie. Even though his experience of 11 race starts across 2023 and 2024 will make people question his rookie status.
Nevertheless, Lawson has performed the worst of the new drivers so far, having failed to get past Q1 and not scoring a single point for Red Bull.
