Antonelli cries, Mercedes slumps, Verstappen closes door

Jul.27 (GMM) Mercedes is enduring its worst weekend of 2025 so far at Spa – just as Toto Wolff all but confirmed that Max Verstappen will remain at Red Bull.

The clearest sign came not in laptimes, but in emotion. Kimi Antonelli, Wolff’s 18-year-old protege and Lewis Hamilton’s direct replacement, qualified a disastrous 18th – and was in tears before speaking to media.

He clutched a screwed-up tissue throughout his interviews, his eyes red, his voice trembling. “Are you ok?” a Viaplay interviewer asked.

“Yeah, I’m ok.”

“Yeah? Sure? Ok.”

The collapse had started in the cockpit. “So sorry. Sorry,” Antonelli said over team radio. “Don’t sweat about it, mate,” came the reply from the well-known Pete Bonnington.

Later, still shaken, Antonelli told reporters: “Just confidence. It’s a difficult moment for me. I just need to find the light out of the tunnel again.”

Team boss Wolff, speaking to Sky Deutschland, admitted the team had mishandled the sprint weekend: “We did a long run in the only practice session, which was wrong. They went into qualifying with a single fast lap from practice. That’s just not acceptable, especially not for a rookie.”

He said he tried to lighten the pressure on Antonelli with an unusual offer: “I told him I expected him to drive fast, and if he crashed into the wall, I’d give him 500 euros cash. I simply don’t want any trauma to remain.

“He’s two to three tenths behind George. That can’t stick in his head.”

Martin Brundle, former F1 driver and respected Sky pundit, warned: “Antonelli is in a really difficult phase, and the team needs to make sure it doesn’t turn into a crisis for a young man under so much pressure.”

George Russell qualified only sixth and admitted something is fundamentally wrong. “It was my worst qualifying of the season, as was Kimi’s,” he said. “In the first six races of the season, we were on the podium four times. In the next six, only once.

“It’s logical to conclude the team has shifted towards the middle of the pack.”

Wolff agreed: “It has been our weakest performance this year and we need to quickly understand why.”

Meanwhile, rumours of Verstappen joining Mercedes have cooled. Wolff joked with Ralf Schumacher on Sky Deutschland that it was his fault that their side-by-side yachts in Sardinia led to paparazzi chaos.

“You got the photographers on our vacation,” he told Ralf. “Yes, very nice when you have to hide.”

Wolff all but confirmed the team is sticking with its current lineup for 2026. “We are 90 percent, no, 95 percent certain that we will go into the new season with these drivers,” said the Austrian.

Asked if that means Verstappen said ‘no’ in Sardinia, Wolff added: “There’s no definitive ‘no’ yet. But our priority is to continue with our line-up. That’s what we’ve decided to do.

“Everything else we have to explore and see what a four-time world champion does in the future.”

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