Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has admitted there will be times when Andrea Kimi Antonelli makes the team “rip our hair out” during his debut Formula 1 season in 2025.
Antonelli has been selected as the successor to Lewis Hamilton, who chose to call time on his illustrious partnership with Mercedes to end his F1 career with Ferrari.
The Italian’s maiden campaign will mirror his seven-time F1 champion predecessor as he will be put into the deep end with a team that aims to challenge for the title.
Antonelli demonstrated his raw potential when he made his initial outing at an F1 race weekend in Monza until he endured a high-speed crash on his second push lap.
Wolff has acknowledged that Mercedes will experience more moments like that across 2025 as Antonelli, who has conducted extensive F1 testing, gets up to speed.
When asked about his thoughts on the upcoming season, Wolff told media including Motorsport Week: “We need to wait to look at it, 2025 same regulations you can see that the pecking order varies depending on the track and the opportunities there to fight for victories, if we can do that we can fight for a title.
“It’s also going to be a year where George [Russell] will settle in as being a senior driver and Kimi will rip our hair out, other times we will see moments of brilliance.
“It’s a year of managing expectations for Kimi, preparing our driver line-up for 2026.”
Wolff explains Antonelli choice
Wolff has reiterated that the decision to overlook established race winner Carlos Sainz to replace Hamilton has been done with the impending rules overhaul in mind.
The Austrian has explained how the German marque hopes that Antonelli will have ironed out his inevitable errors once the regulation switch takes place next season.
“We want to prepare Andrea for 2026,” Wolff said via Autosport.
“If you expect him to be on pole in Melbourne, win the race and immediately in the race for the championship, then the risk is high. Because it won’t happen.
“But if you consider that the boy is 18 years old, he is very talented, but he must first grow up and will make mistakes, then the risk is limited.
“We see 2025 as a year of transition and we want to prepare him for 2026, when everything will restart again for everyone.”
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