Toto Wolff is facing a tough decision ahead of the 2025 campaign, as Mercedes’s recent performance struggles are leaving him puzzled about who should be the driver to replace Lewis Hamilton.
Since the introduction of the new regulations in 2022, the Brackley-based outfit hasn’t been able to fight for victories and championships so frequently as during its glorious hybrid era days.
In 2024, the British outfit seems to be the fourth-fastest team, behind Red Bull, Ferrari, and McLaren. With Hamilton leaving the team to join Ferrari, Wolff needs to choose the best replacement possible.
The doubt that he is facing right now is whether it would be better to sign a more experienced driver that could help them get back to winning ways, or sign a youngster such as Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The second option would be more risky, but considering Mercedes’s recent issues, it would also mean that the Italian would be racing with less pressure, and it could help him in his first year as a rookie in F1.
“I think you can look at it from various perspectives,” Wolff explained.
“I believe that we are in a rebuilding phase. You need to acknowledge that now three years into these regulations, we have got to do things differently than we’ve done in the past without throwing overboard what we believe is goodness in the way we operate.
“It could mean putting a young driver in there and giving him an opportunity with less pressure than fighting for victories immediately, or putting a more experienced driver in the car that can help us dig ourselves out of the current performance picture.”
Wolff then added that Antonelli testing Mercedes F1 cars in Austria and Imola was already planned, whether or not the Italian will race in Formula 1 next season.
“The program of Kimi driving Formula 1 has been in place for a long time and hasn’t changed massively over the last few weeks.
“What we have done is added more days, but what you will see in the next few months has been in place, whether or not he’s going to sit in a Formula 1 car next year.
“We’re going to do a few of these days for him to get comfortable in an F1 car. He’s driving the 2021 car in Austria for the first time. We want to give him a feeling of what a really good car feels like before we put him in the ’22!
“Obviously, he’s been our young boy for a long time, and we’re keen to see what he’s able to do in a Formula 1 car. [Ferrari reserve] Ollie Bearman was refreshing to look at how competitive he was in Saudi Arabia.
“No free practice, high speed, complicated track, and he was right up there. So Kimi would be doing just fine.”