Toto Wolff explains why he chose not to let Andrea Kimi Antonelli gain experience at Williams. The young Italian will make his debut for the top German team, Mercedes, in 2025, replacing Lewis Hamilton. According to Wolff, this approach prevents Antonelli from being ‘contaminated’ by driving for another team first.
Lewis Hamilton will move to Ferrari in 2025, and his place at Mercedes will be taken by 18-year-old Andrea Kimi Antonelli. This means that instead of a line-up with a lot of experience, as Hamilton won the world title six times with the German team, Mercedes will have one of the youngest driver duos on the current grid.
“Now is the time to make a generational change after Lewis’s departure, because nothing will be the same as before,” Wolff explains about Mercedes’ new direction, to Autosprint. “Next year we will have a young team. Starting the season with George and Antonelli means that we are ushering in a new era. The previous era was great and now it’s time to turn the page and make a fresh start.”
Direct to Mercedes
Antonelli will make his Formula 1 debut directly with a top team, Mercedes, instead of first gaining experience with a midfield team. Wolff’s decision to immediately put the young Italian in the successor to the W15 has already received a lot of criticism. The Austrian explains why Mercedes is sticking to its guns.
“The reason Antonelli is driving for Mercedes right away and not debuting at Williams first is because you want him to be fresh,” says Wolff. “Not contaminated, if you can put it that way, by external experiences. If he were to go to another team first, he would learn different things, exhibit different behavior, have different ideas about technical things than we do. We want to avoid that. I think it only has advantages to have a young driver with you right away.”
