The competition for the open seat at Mercedes will be intense, considering the team’s high status and recent history of World Championship victories. Toto Wolff did not rule out the possibility of bringing Kimi Antonelli to Mercedes next year, but made it clear that the decision on the team formation will not be made immediately. Mercedes is currently in search of a new teammate for George Russell, following Lewis Hamilton’s decision to join Ferrari. Given the team’s reputation and past successes, the seat at Mercedes will certainly attract great interest. While there are numerous contenders for the seat, one name that has been associated with it is Mercedes junior driver, Antonelli. This year, Antonelli will make his debut in Formula 2 after winning the Formula Regional European Championship title for Alpine. As Mercedes narrows down its list of potential candidates to replace Hamilton, Wolff stated that he will not rush his decision. When asked about Antonelli’s suitability for the position, Wolff told the press, including RacingNews365: “We were caught off guard by Lewis’ departure in early February. I want to take a different approach to selecting the driver for next year. Of course, Kimi has been part of our junior program since he was 11 years old and we have enjoyed watching him mature and progress through the categories. However, I also want to ease some of the pressure on him. He is only 17 years old. He has already won everything he needed to win in his first season, but I believe he will become a Formula 1 driver. He will be a very successful Formula 1 driver. However, he has not yet started his campaign in Formula 2. They had a challenging test in the early days in Bahrain, and we will see how things develop. I want to wait for the first Formula 2 races that will coincide with Formula 1. There are many highly skilled drivers available for next year or so, and all of this will be taken into consideration when deciding on the driver lineup for next year, but this decision will not be made so soon.”
