Juan Pablo Montoya believes that too much is being said about Kimi Antonelli and that there should be much more talk about Isack Hadjar, because the latter's performance clearly surpasses the youngster from Mercedes.
Many already consider Antonelli a record holder, to whom this title suits in many ways, but they owe this more to his youth and Mercedes competitiveness than to his indisputable talent. Montoya notes this, but believes that there is a brighter star in the sky of F1 rookies:
"I think that, among the young drivers, Hadjar is still by far the best. Gabriel Bortoleto is also a talented driver, who had very strong qualifying, but in the races he didn't show anything special, although even so he surpasses Nico Hülkenberg.
"I think there's something missing with Kimi Antonelli. He wasn't bad, but I thought he would face George Russell in Bahrain, but that's not how it happened. He didn't even come close to him, he didn't do a good enough job. What he does is very common, he messes up the bottom of the car, he makes a lot of mistakes, but he controls the situations he messes up very well. I only saw Isack Hadjar make a mistake once, in the warm-up lap of the first race of the season, since then he's been giving a solid performance. And I think that sooner or later, that will attract the attention of Red Bull Racing." - mused the driver who won seven Formula 1 races.
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