Toto Wolff reacted final weekend in Hungary to Mercedes protégé Andrea Kimi Antonelli unexpectedly casting a doubt over his personal readiness for a Formulation 1 seat in 2025.
The 17-year-old charger has been earmarked by Wolff because the almost definitely candidate to fill Lewis Hamilton’s vacant seat at Mercedes for subsequent season.
Antonelli, who presently compete within the FIA Formulation 2 Championship with Prema, has loved a mercurial rise by means of the ranks, bypassing F3 and leaping straight from Formulation Regional to F2.
The Italian teenager conquered his first win within the feeder sequence at Silverstone earlier this month when he reigned supreme within the Saturday dash occasion held within the moist.
He then loved one other dominant win in final Sunday’s characteristic race on the Hungaroring, though a late Security Automotive considerably helped his trigger by permitting him to undertake his necessary pitstop throughout the neutralization and subsequently lose solely a minimal of time.
Requested after the race if his performances with Prema, which have up to now outshone these of his teammate and future Haas F1 driver Ollie Bearman, have satisfied him that he’s additionally worthy of a promotion to F1 regardless of his lack of expertise, Antonelli supplied a considerably shocking reply.
“I do not know if I might be prepared, to be sincere. I am nonetheless studying lots in F2,” he mentioned.
“I positively nonetheless make lots of errors and the small print that basically matter, I am nonetheless not doing the whole lot proper. I simply need to be sincere.”
Addressing the Mercedes junior’s remark, Wolff used a little bit of humor to deride the latter whereas praising Antonelli’s performances. Nevertheless, the Austrian urged that the younger gun’s leads to F2 aren’t the only indicator to guage his potential.
“I do know that we typically overlook – remind your self how silly we have been at 17,” the 52-year-old advised the media in Hungary.
“I clearly can inform you, my lack of maturity would by no means [have] allowed me to take clear choices in such a extremely aggressive subject.”
“And he is a number of years from simply being in karting, after which in Formulation Regional, and now he is in F2, underneath the eyes of the world for this Mercedes seat.
“So, what I might wish to see from him is doing errors and studying from them. Persevering with to information the staff learn how to enhance efficiency for Prema, and tyre administration, main the race inside the tyre [life] – and all that was completed [in the F2 feature race in Hungary].
“And now we get to see if he can consolidate on that degree, however in F2 it is all the time tough to guage, so what we see ourselves within the knowledge of the Formulation 1 checks, that is encouraging.”
However, Wolff was impressed with the Italian’s show in Sunday’s characteristic racen calling it a veritable “assertion”.
“Kimi did an excellent job [in the feature race]. That was a dominant win on two totally different tyre compounds,” he mentioned.
“He was actually sturdy and it was deserved, however now we have by no means doubted his tempo. The velocity is about studying in such a quick growth, and it is about studying tyre administration and all this stuff – and that is why [his victory] was an announcement.”
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