Juan Pablo Montoya believes that too much is being said about Kimi Antonelli, and much more should be said about Isack Hadjar. The latter is clearly outperforming the Mercedes rookie with his performance.
Many already view Antonelli as a record holder, which is true in many respects, but he owes this more to his youth and Mercedes' competitiveness than to his undeniable talent. Montoya sees this too, but he believes there is a brighter star among the F1 rookies:
“I think that among the young drivers, Hadjar is still by far the best. Gabriel Bortoleto is also a skilled driver who has performed very strong qualifications, but he hasn’t shown anything special in the races, though he still outperforms Nico Hülkenberg.
I think Kimi Antonelli is missing something. He wasn’t bad, but I thought he would beat George Russell in Bahrain, but that didn’t happen. He couldn’t even get close, he didn’t do a good enough job. What he does is very erratic, he breaks the floor, makes a lot of mistakes, but he controls the situations he messes up very strongly. We’ve only seen Isack Hadjar make a mistake once, during the formation lap of the very first race of the season, and since then he has delivered rock-solid performances. And I believe that sooner or later this will catch the attention of Red Bull Racing.” - reflected the driver who has won seven Formula 1 races.
Photo: F1 / Getty Images
