Kimi Antonelli was teased as a potential replacement for Lewis Hamilton since the start of this year and was officially announced by Mercedes during the Italian GP weekend. Before the announcement, rumors of him moving to Williams, or joining as a reserve driver came up. Mercedes CEO and Team Principal Toto Wolff reveals why he signed Antonelli for the Mercedes seat.
According to formule1.nl, Wolff said, “The reason Antonelli is driving for Mercedes straight away and not making his debut at Williams first is because you want him to be fresh. Not contaminated, if you can say so, by external experiences.”
Will Antonelli’s FP1 crash have any impact on the decision Mercedes makes on its driver line-up?
Well, no. It will have “zero effect”, according to Toto Wolff – who intends to “hire based on ability”. pic.twitter.com/ANtRTnWSyr
— The Race (@wearetherace) August 30, 2024
Many F1 pundits including former F1 world champion Nico Rosberg suggested that Antonelli should sign with Williams for a year before making the big move to Mercedes. Max Verstappen did the same by spending over a year with the junior Red Bull team and then joining Red Bull.
Wolff was asked the same question as to why Antonelli — who doesn’t have any F1 race experience — had been signed in to fill in the boots of a seven-time world champion. Although the Italian is talented, even Helmut Marko suggested that Antonelli needs to prove himself to be worthy of the Mercedes seat.
Wolff explained how a driver learns different things, shows different behavior, and has different ideas about technical things if he goes to a different team first. Mercedes wanted to avoid the same and that is why, they put Antonelli straight into the Mercedes seat for 2025.
However, Wolff did not follow the same approach in George Russell’s case.
Wolff made Russell drive for Williams before the Mercedes opportunity
Russell signed with Mercedes in 2015 after sitting down with Wolff, discussing his plans, and asking questions to the Mercedes CEO. The Briton went on to quickly step up the single-seater ladder. Russell has similar success to Antonelli, even more so by winning F3 [then-GP3] and F2 championships back to back in 2017 and 2018.
Yet, the Brit wasn’t signed to the Mercedes team immediately. Russell had to race for Williams and spent three years at the Grove outfit before finally making a move to the Silver Arrows in 2022. This was completely opposite to Wolff’s recent claims of drivers learning different habits if they sign with another team first.
Arguably, Antonelli getting the F1 seat for 2025 is largely affected by the fact that Hamilton left big boots to be filled and that Wolff wanted the next Verstappen after missing out on the Dutchman back in 2014.
On the other hand, Russell did not have the opportunity as both Bottas and Hamilton were performing well and winning the championships for Mercedes. Regardless, Antonelli will now team up with Russell from 2025 and it will be an all-Mercedes Academy driver lineup at the Brackley-based outfit.
