Mercedes F1 Promotes 18-Year-Old Rookie as Hamilton’s Replacement

• After Lewis Hamilton shocked his team by announcing earlier this year of his plan to move to Ferrari in 2025, Mercedes F1 was left with few options for a replacement.

• The team courted Max Verstappen for a bit, but the champion has chosen to stay with Red Bull, where he has a contract through 2028.

• Tapping the 18-year-old Kimi Antonelli for the open seat will make the young Italian driver one of the youngest racers in Formula 1 history.

Mercedes protégé Andrea ‘Kimi’ Antonelli will become one of the youngest racers in Formula 1 history in 2025 after the manufacturer confirmed him as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement.

Antonelli, who recently turned 18, has been part of Mercedes’ young driver scheme since 2019 and is highly regarded within the organization.

Mercedes announced the development at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

Antonelli—who goes by the nickname Kimi—has long been touted for a drive with Mercedes but his promotion has effectively been fast-tracked after Hamilton’s decision to leave for Ferrari.

Antonelli, who will be the first rookie to ever race for the marque, will partner George Russell.

He will be one of three full-season rookies on the 2025 grid, with Alpine having promoted Jack Doohan, and Haas having signed Oliver Bearman.

“Our new line-up is perfect to open the next chapter in our story,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said. “It is also a testament to the strength of our junior program and our belief in home-grown talent.

“George has proved that he is one of the very best drivers in the world. He is not only fast, consistent, and determined, but has also developed into a strong leader within the team.

“Kimi has consistently shown the talent and speed needed to compete at the very top of our sport. We know it will be another big step up, but he has impressed us in his F1 testing this year and we will be supporting him every step of the way in the learning process.”

Added Antonelli: “Reaching F1 is a dream I’ve had since I was a small boy; I want to thank the team for the support they’ve given me in my career so far and the faith they’ve shown in me.

“I am still learning a lot, but I feel ready for the opportunity. I will be focused on getting better and delivering the best possible results for the team.”

Russell welcomed Antonelli to the team, commenting that “he’s a fantastic young talent and a fellow graduate of our junior program. I look forward to using the experience I’ve gained from my own journey to provide guidance to Kimi as he makes the step up to F1.

“I know how much of a support Lewis was for me throughout my time as a junior driver and since I’ve been his teammate. I’ve learned so much from him and I hope to play a similar role for Kimi.”

Mercedes Reaches Inevitable Conclusion

Mercedes was stunned in early 2024 when Hamilton—who signed a two-year extension in August 2023—told them he had exercised a break clause to join Ferrari for 2025.

It meant Mercedes was suddenly a player in the driver market, and Toto Wolff’s phone received a fair few calls from interested parties.

But from very early on Antonelli was earmarked as its favored candidate for 2025, even when the young Italian had not even made his Formula 2 debut.

Mercedes did not chase experienced racers while some free agents were also aware that long-term contracts would not be in the offing given the looming presence of Antonelli.

The likes of Fernando Alonso and Alex Albon renewed contracts at Aston Martin and Williams respectively, while Carlos Sainz—comfortably the best free agent on the market—signed for Williams prior to the summer recess.

Mercedes ramped up Antonelli’s private testing program at a breadth of circuits in 2022-spec machinery—as permitted under Formula 1 regulations—while keeping him as shielded as possible from the public eye.

As early as April Hamilton quipped that, if he was in Wolff’s position, he would give Antonelli the seat.

Antonelli, whose father runs a GT and karting team, has been under Mercedes’ umbrella since he was 12 years old, and his family have a close relationship with the Wolffs; Jack, the young son of Toto and Susie, has been mentored by Antonelli when karting on multiple occasions.

Wolff continued making overtures to World Champion Max Verstappen in the hope that the Dutchman could be tempted to move across from Red Bull, with whom he holds a contract through 2028.

Mercedes’ options consequently boiled down to Verstappen or Antonelli, and with the champ staying put Mercedes has gone for the bold option of promoting its protégé.

In a team that values stability and longevity, Antonelli will be only the sixth different person to race for Mercedes since its Formula 1 return in 2010.

Antonelli Gets a Big Chance

Not since Hamilton, with McLaren in 2007, has a full-time novice been thrown into the sharp end of the Formula 1 grid, assuming Mercedes retains its current state of competitiveness in 2025.

The likes of Antonelli’s future teammate Russell, Verstappen, and Charles Leclerc all had time—in the case of Russell three years—with operations further down the grid, away from the limelight, when they entered Formula 1. Even Verstappen, who won on his debut for Red Bull Racing aged 18, had a season and a bit at Toro Rosso first.

Antonelli’s rise has been rapid; he made his single-seater debut towards the end of 2021, but won titles in Italian and German Formula 4 in 2022, before claiming the Formula Regional titles in the Middle East and its main European series in 2023.

The conventional step would be to graduate to Formula 3, but Mercedes decided that Antonelli should leap to Formula 2, with perennial front-runner Prema.

A new car in Formula 2 leveled the playing field, but Prema has struggled for performance this season, and the anticipated battle between Antonelli and Ferrari-backed teammate Oliver Bearman has not materialized.

Antonelli has rallied to hold seventh in the standings, and has two wins to his name, achieved in the rain at Silverstone and in the dry at the Hungaroring.

It is a season in which driver performance has been exceptionally hard to judge, but Haas—and by extension Ferrari—has sufficient faith in Bearman to give him a multi-year Formula 1 deal, despite being only 15th in the championship.

There will undoubtedly be setbacks—after all, look at some of the early errors of even Verstappen and Hamilton, and his own crash-curtailed FP1 debut on Friday at Monza—and he will need to be given breathing room in 2025, but the long-term potential of an Antonelli/Mercedes partnership is enormous.