Mercedes will give more Formula 1 testing opportunities to its junior driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who is a candidate for the seat Lewis Hamilton will vacate in 2025.
However team principal Toto Wolff confirmed Sebastian Vettel, who retired from F1 two years ago, is also under consideration.
Antonelli is due to have his first run in one of Mercedes’ F1 cars during the break between now and the resumption of his F2 season at Imola next month. Wolff said this programme was planned before Hamilton’s decision to leave the team for Ferrari, but has expanded in scope.
“The programme of Kimi driving [a] Formula 1 [car] has been in place for a long time and hasn’t changed massively over the last few weeks,” he said. “What we have done is added more days, but what you will see in the next few months has been in place, whether or not he’s going to sit in a Formula 1 car next year.”
Teams are allowed to run drivers in two-year-old cars under F1’s Testing of Previous Cars regulations. However as Mercedes’ W13 was one of its least competitive designs, beset by severe porpoising problems, Antonelli will make his debut in its immediate predecessor, which the team used to win its most recent constructors’ championship title.
“We’re going to do a few of these days for him to get comfortable in an F1 car,” said Wolff. “He’s driving the 2021 car in Austria for the first time. We want to give him a feeling what a really good car feels like before we put him in the ’22.”
Antonelli has improved his results over his first three weekends in F2. He qualified second and finished fourth in the feature race at Albert Park and lies ninth in the standings.
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Wolff said the team is “keen to see what he’s able to do in a Formula 1 car,” particularly after the impressive performance by his F2 team mate Oliver Bearman, who made his F1 debut last month as a substitute for Carlos Sainz Jnr in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
“It was refreshing to look at how competitive he was in Saudi Arabia,” said Wolff. “No free practice, high speed, complicated track, and he was right up there. So Kimi would be doing just fine.”
Mercedes is also considering a driver who represents the opposite to Antonelli in terms of age and experience. Four-times world champion Vettel indicated this week he was looking at a possible return to F1 next year.
Wolff said Vettel “is someone…
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