Zapping Le Blogauto The Porsche Panamera in advance premiere
Prodigy or flash in the pan?
Mercedes and Toto Wolff had missed Verstappen, who everyone considered too young for F1. That’s why Red Bull rushed to sign him despite his age. This time, Mercedes does not want to let go of the one who is considered a prodigy, although externally he has not proven anything conclusive. But the outside eye does not have the complete information to detect talent.
The Italian will therefore replace the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton who is heading to Ferrari for a final challenge. Antonelli has just turned 18 on August 25 and is currently in Formula 2. His short career is quite “meteoric”. Champion of Italian and German Formula 4 in 2022 with Prema, he is champion the following year of FRECA (Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine) and its version in the Middle East.
No passage through F3 for the young Antonelli, but a jump directly to Formula 2, still with Prema. For the moment, Antonelli has only two victories (one in sprint and one in main race) and is in 7th place with half as many points as the Frenchman Hadjar (Red Bull line). But, Antonelli dominates his teammate who is none other than Olie Bearman, protégé of Ferrari who will go to Haas next year in “nursery” alongside Esteban Ocon.
Colapinto, Bearman, Antonelli, the golden generation of F2 2024
Prema therefore places these two drivers in F1. Bearman has 34 points, Antonelli 84. And even if we remove the result from Saudi Arabia when Bearman replaced Sainz in F1, Antonelli is ahead of Bearman.
Mercedes believes a lot in Antonelli and has built him a tailor-made program to bring him to F1 quickly by allowing him to test “old” F1 cars from several seasons ago. Where we get a little blow behind the ears is when we read that Russell will be the “senior” driver of the team. Rusell is only 26 years old…
Kimi Antonelli took part in free practice #1 of the Monza Grand Prix yesterday. Although he showed good pace from the start, he was caught out by the Parabolica. Several other drivers were caught out there, but Antonelli was unable to recover the Mercedes which ended up in the barriers. George Russell was watching from the garages as he was the one who passed his car for the occasion.
Now, Mercedes will have to work with the young driver to calm him down and teach him how to handle pressure. It’s still a gamble for Mercedes. But that’s how you spot prodigies too. The last potential driver in F1 next year, Isack Hadjar must win the championship and hope that Helmut Marko is in a good mood to move to VCARB in place of Ricciardo (or wait for Tsunoda to leave?).
To summarize
Kimi Antonelli has just turned 18 but will be in a Formula 1 car next year. And not just any car, since it is Mercedes who have decided to propel him into the premier discipline, even though he has not yet shown much concrete in Formula 2.
Now Antonelli has a lot of pressure on his shoulders. He will be expected to deliver.
