Mercedes expect to ‘rip hair out’ during Kimi Antonelli’s debut F1 season

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says there will be times when Andrea Kimi Antonelli makes the team “rip our hair out” during his rookie F1 season in 2025.

18-year-old Antonelli will replace Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton and partner George Russell at Mercedes when he contests his debut F1 season this year.

The Mercedes prodigy has been promoted after just a single season in Formula 2 and will complete a remarkable ascension to F1 having skipped Formula 3 entirely.

Antonelli made headlines when he crashed heavily on his F1 race weekend debut in practice at the Italian Grand Prix last year. 

The incident occurred less than 10 minutes into FP1 but Antonelli had been lighting up the timing sheet before he lost control of his car.

Wolff has admitted he is expecting Antonelli to make plenty of mistakes as he learns the ropes in F1.

“We need to wait to look at it, 2025 same regulations you can see that the pecking order varies depending on the track and the opportunities there to fight for victories, if we can do that we can fight for a title,” Wolff told media including Crash.net.

“It’s also going to be a year where George [Russell] will settle in as being a senior driver and Kimi will rip our hair out, other times we will see moments of brilliance.

“It’s a year of managing expectations for Kimi, preparing our driver line-up for 2026.”

Mercedes managing expectations

While Wolff believes Antonelli can become a leading driver in F1, he has been quick to downplay expectations for the teenager ahead of his rookie campaign.

Speaking to German publication Auto Motor und Sport, Wolff insisted Mercedes are viewing 2025 as a “year of transition” ahead of a major rules overhaul in 2026.

“We want to prepare Andrea for 2026,” Wolff said.

“If you expect him [Antonelli] to be on pole position in Melbourne, win the race and immediately compete for the championship, then the risk is high because that won't happen.

“If we take into account that he is only 18-years-old, very talented, but needs to grow and make mistakes first, the risk is less.

“We see 2025 as a year of transition and we want to prepare him for 2026, when everything will restart again for everyone.”

Antonelli won two races on his way to finishing sixth in the 2024 F2 drivers’ standings.

That followed championship successes in Italian and ADAC F4 in 2022, and further titles in the Formula Regional European Championship and Formula Regional Middle East Championship in 2023.