Formula 2 Italian driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli walks down the paddock at the Monza Circuit ahead of the Italy's Formula One Grand Prix at Monza, northern Italy, on August 29, 2024. Italian teenager Andrea Kimi Antonelli will step up to Formula One next season and replace Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, the team announced on August 31, 2024. Antonelli, who turned 18 on August 25, will partner George Russell, another product of the team's junior programme, after Hamilton moves to Ferrari after this year. - AFP
MONZA, Italy (AFP): Andrea Kimi Antonelli will be thrown in at the deep end next year after Mercedes announced on Saturday that the Italian teenager will replace Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes once the seven-time world champion jumps ship for Ferrari.
Rookie Antonelli, who celebrated his 18th birthday last weekend, will partner George Russell as he attempts what he called the "impossible" task of stepping in for F1 icon Hamilton.
"He's such a great figure in the sport of today. And he has achieved so much in his career," Antonelli told reporters.
"So I don't want to see it as (being) his replacement. I'm just the next driver for Mercedes in '25."
Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff said that he decided to move Antonelli up from Formula Two "five minutes after Lewis Hamilton told me that he's going to Ferrari" and that the new pairing "represent the future" of Mercedes.
"He (Hamilton) is the biggest personality in the sport, with the biggest gravitas and international recognition," said Wolff.
"He's also the one that has beaten all the records and when Lewis decided to go for another challenge, no one can replace him in all of his, let's say, stature.
"But that doesn't mean that the team is not going to prosper with two drivers that represent the future."
However neither Wolff nor the team statement revealed for how long Antonelli's contract would run and the Austrian didn't close the door on snatching Max Verstappen from Red Bull for 2026 when asked if he discarded the idea.
"There's no discussion, there's no second thoughts about what we're doing in 2026, because now it's about 2024 and 2025," said Wolff.
"And if flirting outside happens, then they will know it before me. These guys will know it at the same time."
Antonelli was picked by Mercedes even though his first ever F1 drive ended quickly and in spectacular fashion at Friday's first practice session for the Italian Grand Prix, smashing Russell's car into the trackside barriers at Monza with just four completed laps under his belt.
Given a chance by Mercedes to drive an F1 car, he lost control at the Parabolica turn 10 minutes into the session and seriously damaged the front end after ploughing through the gravel.
"The difference between free practice and qualifying we need to discuss," joked Wolff, who said after Friday's crash that Antonelli would get probably another chance in a Mercedes car at the Mexican GP in October.
Antonelli will join the top-tier championship after a stellar youth career which led to him being fast-tracked to F2, where he competes for Prema Racing.
He skipped F3 after winning the 2022 Italian and German F4 championships and last year's Middle East and European regional Formula championships.
With four rounds to go in the F2 championship Antonelli sits seventh, starting the season slowly before scoring his first victory in the sprint race at Silverstone at the beginning of July, before winning the main race in Budapest two weeks later.
Antonelli will carry the hopes of Italian F1 fans that one of their countryman could bring glory back to a motorsport-mad nation which hasn't had a GP winner since Giancarlo Fisichella in 2006.
The last Italian to win the drivers' championship was Alberto Ascari in 1953, although 1978 champion Mario Andretti was born in Italy even if he represented the United States. - AFP
