Juan Pablo Montoya believes that the industry talks too much about Kimi Antonelli and that much more should be said about Isack Hadjar, as the latter's performance clearly overshadows the Mercedes youngster.
Many already see Antonelli as a record-breaker, and in many ways he is a great example, but he owes this more to his youth and Mercedes' competitiveness than to his otherwise undeniable talent. Montoya also sees the latter, but he believes there is a brighter star in the sky for F1's rookies:
"I think Hadjar is still by far the best of the young drivers. Gabriel Bortoleto is also a skilled driver who had very strong qualifying, but he didn't show anything special in the races, although he is still better than Nico Hülkenberg.
I think there is something missing with Kimi Antonelli. He wasn't bad, but I thought he would beat George Russell in Bahrain, but he didn't. He couldn't even come close, he didn't do a good enough job. He's very rhapsodic in what he does, he breaks the floor, he makes a lot of mistakes, but he controls the situations he messes up very well. We only saw Isack Hadjar make a mistake once, on the opening lap of the very first race of the season, and since then he has been performing solidly. And I think that sooner or later this will catch the attention of Red Bull Racing," reflected the driver who has won seven Formula 1 races.
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