When news broke ahead of the 2024 season that Lewis Hamilton was set to leave Mercedes for Ferrari in 2025, you wondered how the Silver Arrows would cope.
Not only had the team struggled to adapt to the new regulations introduced in 2022 — a trend that largely continued throughout the 2024 campaign — but they were now losing their star driver and seven-time world champion.
From the outside looking in, the highly successful team seemed as far away from winning as ever, with their days of F1 dominance nothing more than a fleeting memory of the past.
And yet, as 2025 draws closer, there is cause for great optimism surrounding the team, with Toto Wolff and company pulling off an excellent signing that ensures their handling of Hamilton’s replacement can be labelled nothing other than a masterstroke.
The man drafted in to replace Hamilton is young Italian and Mercedes junior star Andrea Kimi Antonelli.After plenty of speculation that the young star would get the role ever since Hamilton’s Ferrari announcement, it was finally confirmed that he would be driving alongside George Russell next season at the Italian Grand Prix.And yet, for all of the hype surrounding Antonelli and the great promise that he has — by all accounts he is a future superstar of the sport — that same weekend also highlighted the huge gamble that Wolff and Mercedes are taking in hiring a driver with such little experience.
In his first official outing in an F1 car in FP1 at Monza, just ten minutes into the session, Antonelli lost control of the Mercedes into turn 11, smashing into the barriers as a result to mark a nightmare debut in the sport.In fairness to Mercedes, despite this accident, they stood firm on their decision to announce Antonelli that weekend. However, it was perhaps a reminder that he has big shoes to fill, and that is a lot to cope with at 18 years old, no matter how talented you are.
Unlike Russell, sent to Williams for three seasons to learn his trade, Antonelli is set to be thrust straight into the limelight and it remains to be seen how he will cope.
That is why Mercedes’ latest driver signing is a genius move, with the team confirming this week that Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas would be returning in a reserve driver role.Bottas previously drove at Mercedes between 2017 and 2021, racing as Lewis Hamilton’s team-mate and winning 10 grands prix during that time.Replaced by Russell for the 2022 campaign, Bottas is now back, and if his comments are anything to go by, this is far from a quiet role in the background ahead of retirement.
“Despite the challenges of the past few years, I know that I’ve still got so much more to contribute to F1,” Bottas declared as part of Mercedes’ announcement.”Since I was a five-year-old kid growing up in Nastola, Finland, my focus has been on achieving success in the top tier of motorsport. I’ve been fortunate to have enjoyed many incredible moments in my 12 years of racing in F1 so far.
“As I return to the place where so many of those moments were achieved, I’m looking forward to using all the knowledge I’ve gained to help the team to perform and progress towards our goal of fighting for world championships.”
Having an experienced driver such as Bottas backing up Russell and Antonelli is a fantastic move from Toto Wolff and the team.
Whilst they will no doubt give Antonelli all the time in the world to adapt to life in Formula 1, Bottas’ arrival means that the team essentially have a get-out-of-jail-free card if they need it.
We’ve seen the mess that Red Bull have gotten themselves in previously when making driver swaps, disrupting both teams mid-season, and this campaign, having to endure an underperforming driver due to not having an adequate replacement lined up.
For Mercedes, however, that scenario has now been avoided if the bright lights of F1 prove too much for Antonelli to cope with at his tender age.
The Mercedes plan will no doubt be for Antonelli to hit the ground running, impress from the off and justify the team’s decision to replace the greatest driver the sport has ever seen with a rookie.
However, if things go wrong, and a change is needed at any stage, Wolff now has a blinder of a backup plan in place.
