Schumacher ‘isn’t special’ and Antonelli crashes at Italia GP

Williams announced they have signed Franco Colapinto to replace Logan Sargeant for the balance of the 2024 because Mick Schumacher “isn’t special”. Williams was looking at three option and Mick Schumacher was one of them but they chose their junior driver instead.

Williams Racing boss James Vowles said of his choices, they chose Franco saying:

“Mick has improved a lot from where he was in Haas, there is no doubt about it. He’s a competent driver that I know he had his time but he has done incredible work with Alpine, with Mercedes and with McLaren in the meantime.

“So the decision is ‘do we put Mick in the car’, which I think Mick would have done a good job, or ‘do we invest in an individual that’s a part of our academy, that’s done hundreds to thousands of laps in our simulator, that’s driven the car, and on the data that we can see from how he’s performing, who’s making significant steps?’

“I think both would fall into a category of good and not special. I think we have to be straightforward about this.

“Mick isn’t special, he would just be good.”

This was received about how you would expect it to be received in the paddock with Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff defending his reserve driver Schumacher:

“I’ve obviously known James for many years, he’s a strategist,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1.

“Sometimes he says things too straightforwardly. That was a statement he could have done without.

“Mick has won everything there is to win, from F4, F3 and F2, and then of course operated in an environment with Gunther [Steiner], who is brutally tough and that was perhaps not what he needed to develop as a driver.

“That’s why he deserved the chance. If you don’t give it to him, you shouldn’t comment on it, you should let everyone live. That’s my opinion.”

meanwhile, the long anticipated debut in FP1 for Mercedes young driver, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, happened on Friday with some impressive pace but ultimately a crash that ended his session and severely damaged George Russell’s car in the process.

Toto Wolff took teh incident in stride saying:

“I guess he was just bitten. Everyone suffered from the temperature, especially rear temperatures around Ascari at these kinds of speeds – that is why the rear stepped out.”

“We would rather have a problem in slowing him down than making him faster,” said Wolff. “What we have seen in one and a half laps is just astonishing.”

What you might find interesting is an article over at Autosport where they reveal the data from Antonelli’s runs suggesting he was fiercely quick. You can read it here.

I would say, from my vantage point, he was pushing very hard and there was a lot of pressure on him. i think the team, who would have been reading this telemetry in real time should have calmed him down a bit but that’s nitpicking isn’t it?