Ezio Zermiani blunt about Kimi Antonelli: "I do not wish him Ferrari"

Rai’s historic Formula 1 correspondent Ezio Zermiani in an interview with Corriere della Sera spoke about Andrea Kimi Antonelli and his leadership in the Formula 1 World Championship: “He is very young, maybe too young. At 19 you can’t have all the necessary characteristics you need to tame a single-seater, but these are no longer the cars of yesteryear. There was a time when the steering wheel was only for turning corners, today it is a computer with a thousand functions. From this point of view absurdly it is also easier for a young person to adapt.”

“He certainly has talent. He makes mistakes of youth, it’s normal. But he has an important attitude: when he makes a mistake, he learns and does not repeat the mistake. That is the fundamental thing. He doesn’t remind me of drivers from the past because now driving is completely different and it’s impossible to make a comparison. The machines today have taken over and are worth 70 percent. It used to be much more tiring, less assisted. Today it’s difficult to make comparisons: even a mistake at the start, with all the aids there are, can be overcome.”

Zermiani does not wish Antonelli a return to Ferrari: “In my opinion, no, or at least I don’t wish him that. He was already in the Ferrari academy, they are the ones who dropped him. Ferrari does not give me the idea that they have an exceptional project but rather a mediocre one, or at least average: I think of a driver like Leclerc, straddling two generations, who has thrown away seven years of his career. The other teams are pretty much aligned, while Mercedes is ahead of everyone. For a young man like Antonelli, being there is ideal.”

On the new Formula 1 he gives a stark judgment: “There is a serious problem related to the batteries. When it is suddenly discharged, the car can lose speed dramatically. We have seen dangerous episodes: cars suddenly slowing down by 80 km/h. This is a huge risk, especially at those speeds. They have to intervene, because this is really dangerous. The spectacle is there because the audience is growing, although it’s all backwards from before. Today you go slow in the corners to charge energy, when before a driver’s courage was measured on the ability to keep the car in the corners at full speed.”