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.”

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.

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.

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.

Meanwhile, Lando Norris took pole position for the Italian Grand Prix on Saturday as the McLaren driver gave himself a great chance to further cut Max Verstappen’s Formula One championship lead.

Trailing by 70 points in the drivers’ standings, Norris clocked one minute, 19.327 seconds in a one-two with teammate Oscar Piastri, as Red Bull’s Verstappen finished nearly seven tenths of a second behind in seventh.

Agencies