Introducing F1's new rookies: Will Mercedes need to repeat tough lesson’s from Antonelli’s sole F2 campaign?

For Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, it’s personal promoting Andrea Kimi Antonelli to a Formula 1 race seat with the Silver Arrows squad at just 18.

Wolff is viewing Antonelli’s sensational rise through the junior formulas as the chance to put right what went wrong in Mercedes missing out on Max Verstappen’s services back in 2014.

Motorsport.com understands that the Austrian even feels that, had Verstappen been under his wing as Antonelli is now, then the outbursts and incidents that have tracked through the world champion’s career would’ve been reduced in number, if not eliminated altogether.

Understanding Wolff is a critical aspect of Antonelli’s story to this point – just one day away from making his first official F1 race weekend appearance as a full-time driver. A Monza one-off in front of his home Italian crowd this is not.

Wolff signed Antonelli – the son of GT racer Marco Antonelli who owns AKM Motorsport racing team and has a tough guy reputation in motorsport circles – back in 2018 when he was just 12. A development programme with F1 as the ultimate destination followed, with Wolff now considered a firm friend of the Antonelli family.

As a multiple karting champion, Antonelli stepped up to car racing in Formula 4 in 2021 – winning the Italian and ADAC championships the following year. Then in 2023 and just his first season, Antonelli won the Formula Regional European championship that F1 teams have come to view as the best breeding ground for future driving success, as well as its Middle East variation.

Watch: How F1 drivers are handling the pressure at the Australian Grand Prix

Wolff and co had thoughts on this being a two-year project before Lewis Hamilton’s defection to Ferrari turbocharged the pace of Antonelli’s F1 graduation.

“I made up my mind five minutes after Lewis Hamilton told me that he was going,” Wolff eventually said of his decision to partner Antonelli with George Russell for 2025.

But, in any case, Mercedes was more interested in how Antonelli delivered in its Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) programme than his F2 results in a 2024 campaign made harder by his Prema team struggling initially with the championship’s new car.

Antonelli’s TPC programme utilised both 2021 and 2022 Mercedes F1 cars. Before his first in the former, the illustrious W12, he made sure to memorise all 30 staff members required to run the car in the test at the Red Bull Ring. Both sides took this rise extremely seriously.

A further sensible exercise in testing Super Formula machinery late in 2024 – specifically to learn the Suzuka track – was scuppered by illness that had also severely impacted Antonelli’s final F2 round in Abu Dhabi last year.

And then, just like that, he was being led around the press room by a Mercedes press attache at the F175 Live event to meet the media as a fully-fledged Mercedes race driver.

“It’s been quite interesting,” he said when Motorsport.com asked if he felt his life had changed in that short time.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, George Russell, Mercedes

Photo by: Getty Images

“Winter preparation has been quite intense. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the factory trying to do a lot of team building. But, so far, it’s been really interesting and it’s gone well.

“I’ve been really trying to focus, day by day, on the progress and trying to focus on trying to learn as many things as possible. Because what I want to avoid is arriving to Melbourne and having some bad surprises. So definitely preparation has been quite intense, but very good.”

Pre-season testing in 2025 went well for Mercedes, with Antonelli’s day two race simulation shading Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc by just 0.1s each lap on average.

Nevertheless, Antonelli left Bahrain lamenting a lack of preparation in extracting the best from the Pirelli tyres in qualifying due to time lost in unexpected rain and then a battery issue. Qualifying is, after all, one of his new team-mate Russell’s greatest strengths.

“For the long runs, I got quite a decent understanding because I’ve been doing a lot of long runs and been experiencing different types of approaches,” he said. “[For example,] how to introduce the tyre into the run.

“Whilst for qualifying, there’s still some work to do.

“But it’s mainly because of testing we’ve been trying a lot of different approaches with tyres. Also different kind of out-laps in order to see how the tyres react and how it holds on during the lap.”

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

But, as good as Bahrain went for the Silver Arrows squad, Ferrari and Red Bull are expected to have maintained their positions above Mercedes in the four-way scrap with McLaren.

This means Antonelli will be doing his learning in the glare of the media spotlight to which only Liam Lawson will be able to relate of the big rookie crop this season.

It also means Antonelli is likely to be retreading the ground of learning to win at a new and even tougher level. And, should there be any repeats of his 2024 Monza FP1 shunting, then it is likely Wolff will need to pick his charge up just as he did at critical times last year.

“When we decided to go for Kimi, it was clear that we are going for a young driver that has shown tremendous potential in the junior series since we’ve known him,” Wolff said in Melbourne on Thursday.

“For Kimi, it’s about the time to develop, to learn the tracks, to be on top for next year, the regulation change. That means great results and that means moments where it’s going to be more difficult.”

Photos from Australian GP – Thursday