Former Mercedes star Nico Rosberg has warned Toto Wolff against signing teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli, suggesting that it is ‘too soon’ for the 17-year-old to make the leap into Formula One. The academy starlet has long been marked out as a future star and is in the conversation to replace Lewis Hamilton next season.
Antonelli has been on Mercedes’ books since his karting days and after dominating the FRECA series in 2023, the teenager was promoted straight into Formula Two with PREMA Racing with the expectation that he would fight team-mate Oliver Bearman for the title.
However, with Hamilton moving on and Max Verstappen unwilling to swap Milton Keynes for Brackley, Wolff has been left with a difficult decision to make regarding his future driver line-up. Now that Fernando Alonso has committed to Aston Martin, Antonelli is one of the two leading contenders for the seat, alongside Carlos Sainz.
Assessing the Italian’s F1 prospects, Rosberg told Sky Sports F1: “Well Antonelli is definitely a superstar of the future, but unfortunately timing-wise it’s really too early for him and especially too early for Toto to make a decision on Antonelli.
“I mean he needs to wait until somewhat later in the year as we see how Antonelli does in Formula Two also. Because he does need a really strong season in Formula Two to make it a possibility for him to go straight to Mercedes. Otherwise, if anything, some time at Williams or something would make sense.”
Wolff is aware of the detrimental impact that promoting Antonelli too soon could have on his career, but the 17-year-old’s stellar junior career, combined with an impressive test outing at the Red Bull Ring earlier this week ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix form a compelling case for taking a gamble.
“The programme of Kimi driving Formula One has been in place for a long time and hasn’t changed massively over the last few weeks,” Wolff explained ahead of his test. “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 One 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 since a long time and we’re keen to see what he’s able to do in a Formula One car. 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.”
