Mercedes were shocked when they heard Lewis Hamilton saying he would leave them by the end of the 2024 season. Nobody thought Hamilton would depart Mercedes and join a new team and that too their biggest rival over the years, Ferrari. Everyone expected Lewis to end his career with the Brackley squad and again join them as their mentor like Niki Lauda.
Mercedes handled the situation perfectly well, respecting Hamilton's decision and allowing him to leave the team. But what we didn't expect was bringing up a youngster like Kimi Antonelli and replacing him for Hamilton. The biggest question is how a 16-year-old youngster became the future of an 8-time championship-winning team. Let's find out.
Youngest ever driver in 2025
Kimi Antonelli is an Italian boy born in 2006 a year before Lewis Hamilton’s F1 debut and when Fernando Alonso won his second Formula 1 title beating Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen. The same year the great Schumacher announced his first retirement. He was picked by Mercedes when he was 11 years old as a Go-Karting driver under the driver development programme. He will make his full-time debut in 2025 and also become the youngest driver on the grid.
Junior racing days
At 15 he raced in the F4 Italian championship and the next year in the German F4 championship winning both of them. Mercedes directly promoted him to F2, jumping the F3 championship and making him race against other rookies like Isack Hadjar, and Gabriel Bortoleto.
Why sign an inexperienced youngster?
Mercedes missed out on signing the 4-time world champion Max Verstappen when he was 17. At that time Mercedes had two great F1 drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. They planned to continue with them for some more years and they didn't have any junior teams to give verstappen a racing seat.
Then Max went to Torro Rosso and the rest is history. If they had known Rosberg would retire after 2016, they wouldn't have let Verstappen join Red Bull. Team Principal Toto Wolff was deeply hurt for missing the Dutchman. So he doesn't want to miss out on Kimi like Max.
Filling the shoes of an icon
Drivers like Esteban Ocon, and Carlos Sainz missed racing for Mercedes as they didn’t show interest in them. Kimi Antonelli now has the biggest opportunity to prove himself as he is racing for a big team with a capable machine. At the same time, he has to fill the big void Hamilton has left in the team. We believe Kimi is a worthy driver, race winner and a future world champion.
Also Read: Ford vs Ferrari: The Greatest Motorsport Rivalry returns to F1 & WEC!