The pressure will be on Andrea Kimi Antonelli next season as he not only makes his F1 debut with a team as big as Mercedes but also the fact that he will be replacing seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. With all eyes set to be on the 18-year-old Italian, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has given him some crucial advice to help him settle.
“If he (Antonelli) skillfully implements his clearly existing strengths and speed and builds himself up slowly, then he can become a threat,” Marko revealed in an interview with RTL/ntv and Sport1.de. However, Marko believes that if Antonelli “tries to force it, then I think his career is also in danger somewhere”.
Marko, who has nurtured talents like Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, is experienced enough to know what will help a young driver not succumb to the pressure in F1 and meet his potential.
Marko hopes Antonelli remains patient and does not get ahead of himself as most young drivers often do, wanting to make a good first impression. The young Italian too witnessed something similar during his maiden FP1 appearance at Monza in 2024.
kimi antonelli crashing in fp1, he’s gotten out of the car okay! pic.twitter.com/TX1iHGtkph
— ellie (@charlclerc) August 30, 2024
Wanting to impress his future team, he pushed from the get-go and even managed to set some blistering lap times until he lost control of his W15 and crashed into the Parabolica corner, ending his session in just 10 minutes. Antonelli will hope to avoid a repeat of the same when he makes his full-time Grand Prix debut in 2025.
Antonelli will be one of six rookies on the 2025 F1 grid
After no rookie was signed for the 2024 season, F1 teams have decided to showcase a lot more faith in the young talent by signing a total of six rookies. The likes of Antonelli, Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber), and Isack Hadjar (RB) will get their first experience of a full F1 weekend next year.
The likes of Liam Lawson (Red Bull), Oliver Bearman (Haas), and Jack Doohan (Alpine) have competed in at least one full F1 weekend. But they will be still considered rookies as they have not completed a full season.
Among all these rookies, Antonelli and Lawson are likely to get the most attention, simply because they would be driving for one of the top sides in their maiden full season itself. And the pressure will be all the more on Antonelli, who has also been labeled the next Max Verstappen.
Why is Antonelli hailed as the next Verstappen?
Like Verstappen, Antonelli skipped (F3) an entire formula category and will make his F1 debut as a teenager. While it may come as a surprise for some that Mercedes are showcasing such faith in an 18-year-old prodigy, team principal Toto Wolff simply does not want to have any more regrets.
He continues to rue the fact that he failed to sign Verstappen back in the day when the Dutchman was driving in F3. Mercedes were hesitant to offer Verstappen a direct entry into F1 from F3 as they already had a strong driver line-up — Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.
That is where Red Bull stepped in by offering the young Dutchman a direct entry into F1 with their sister team Toro Rosso (now RB). And the rest, as they say, is history.
