Kimi Antonelli has admitted that he "didn't manage things the best" during the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix weekend due to the extra pressure that came with it being the Mercedes driver's home race.
The 18-year-old has generally impressed so far during his maiden Formula 1 campaign, taking pole in the Miami Sprint and finishing in the points at five of the six Grands Prix prior to the race at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit on Sunday.
But during a weekend in front of his home crowd, Antonelli faced more media activity and scrutiny than usual, which also included his school class mates visiting the paddock on Thursday.
After retiring from the race due to a technical problem, Antonelli admitted that he felt the extra pressure and attention had impacted his driving.
Antonelli faced home pressure at Imola
"A really intense weekend, mentally and emotionally and I think on my side I didn't manage things the best," he said.
"I think especially on trying to save energy, I didn't do a really good job on that and I could feel it affect a little bit the driving as well because I could feel I didn't have as much energy. Definitely on that side was a really good learning ahead of next home race."
The Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix weekend was not the first time that home pressure has impacted Antonelli, as the young Italian crashed during FP1 at Monza last season on his debut in an official F1 session.
While Antonelli kept out of the barriers at Imola, he was unable to progress beyond Q2 and started from only 13th on the grid. But, after getting the better of Lewis Hamilton's Ferrari, he found himself stuck in a DRS train.
Benefitting from a well-timed Virtual Safety Car, he found himself in the points positions before his retirement on a day which team mate George Russell described as "disastrous".
Antonelli explains ‘throttle issue’ saw his forced to retire from his first home Grand Prix
"Definitely was not the happiest of endings," Antonelli added. "It was difficult, I mean first thing was mainly stuck in the DRS train and obviously the tyres took a hit so was just trying to hang on and then we were lucky with the VSC and then back on the medium.
"To be honest I had high hopes but then after a couple of laps I started to have the throttle issue and then at the end it completely went off.
"Of course is a shame but it's things that happen and I think overall the pace was not too bad at the end of the day. Of course with the issue I don't know how much better it would have been but I was losing, I could feel it quite a lot especially power wise.
"But nothing more I could do and still, was a good learning this weekend and going to see what I can improve as a driver on my side in order to be back stronger in Monaco."
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