During an interview with Sky Sports F1 after FP3 in Imola, Wolff was asked by Karun Chandhok whether or not he had chatted with Hamilton about his first weekend in Italy since signing as a Ferrari driver.

He replied: “We haven’t spoken about it actually because there is 100 million people that watch every Grand Prix and then there is obviously the local Italians here. But I guess for the Italians it’s super exciting to have Lewis Hamilton in red next year.

“We will get used to the outfits. But we’ve got to look at ourselves and, you know, maybe there is an option that we shine more with an Italian in our car… so we’re pushing back as hard.”

With Mercedes’ chances of landing three-time world champion Max Verstappen looking unlikely and Carlos Sainz still deliberating moves to Red Bull and Sauber, Antonelli’s odds of driving in F1 next year are getting better by the week.

The 17-year-old completed a private test in old Mercedes machinery ahead of this weekend. Benchmarked against reserve driver Mick Schumacher, Antonelli impressed technical director James Allison with his performance.

“He’s just a young, enthusiastic driver,” Allison noted. “Very, very fast and metronomic in his pace. He has not been in an F1 car until recently but made it look like he’d been in one for ages within a lap or two. He came at this generation of cars, the ground effect cars, with an open mind.

“He feels all the same things that you’d expect him to feel, but he’s not sort of polluted by the previous cars. So he just takes them as they are and tells us what he is feeling as weaknesses and strengths. He lets the engineers work to try to improve those things… he looks like a very promising young driver.”

Even Hamilton gave the Bologna-born racer his blessing. “Honestly, I have no idea what Toto’s plans are but I think for me taking on a youngster would be [the way to go],” he said. “If it was my job, I would probably take on Kimi.”