Mercedes Junior Andrea Kimi Antonelli is one of the hottest single-seater prospects outside of Formula 1, but Toto Wolff says it must be “careful” with the teenager.
At 17 years of age, Antonelli enters his rookie Formula 2 season after bypassing Formula 3 and is set to partner Ferrari Academy driver Oliver Bearman at PREMA.
Still, despite the F3 leapfrog, Antonelli’s record to date is impressive, including a dozen karting titles and championship wins in all of his debut single-seater seasons thus far.
In 2022, Antonelli won both the German and Italian Formula 4 Championships and backed that up with championship success in the Middle East and European Formula Regional series in 2023.
“We got Kimi under the wings in 2012 and he was a great kid already then,” Mercedes Team Principal Wolff said of the young Italian.
“You could see the character and he was strong. We had him in the garage and there was a lot of confidence.
“In go-karting his track record was immense and then you put him in the junior formulas and he wins every single season in his rookie year.
“But we’ve got to be careful because there’s a lot of hype around him.”
That hype includes some calling Antonelli Mercedes’ long-term replacement for Lewis Hamilton when the seven-time F1 champion decides to retire from the sport.
However, before F1, Wolff admits “Putting him [Antonelli] into F2 is a big step because those cars are heavier and much more powerful.”
Antonelli steps up from the FIA F3 homologated machines in the European Formula Regional series, which are powered by a 1.8 litre, 4-cylinder turbocharged engine with 270 horsepower to the new generation of FIA F2 car powered by a 3.6 litre, V6 turbocharged Mecachrome engine producing 620 HP.
The Italian joins a plethora of rookies competing in their first season of Formula 2.
Anotnelli’s fellow rookies include 2023 F3 championship runner-up Zak O’Sullivan (ART Grand Prix), reigning Super Formula and Super GT champion Ritomo Miyata (Rodin), reigning F3 champion Gabriel Bortoleto (Invicta Racing), four-time F3 race winner Franco Colapinto (MP Motorsport), Rafael Villagómez (Van Amersfoort Racing), F3 race winners Paul Aron (Hitech) and Josep María Martí (Campos) as well as PHM Racing’s Joshua Dürksen.
After a shakedown of the new F2 machine was completed last week, Anotnelli and the rest of the field will conduct pre-season testing in Bahrain on February 11-13, before Round 1 of 14 takes place at Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit on February 29 – March 02.
