Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said he valued Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s loyalty after confirming he will drive for the team next year.
Wolff claimed he chose him for the drive “five minutes after Lewis Hamilton told me that he’s going to Ferrari.”
Hamilton’s move to Ferrari was announced in January. Wolff acknowledged he subsequently made an approach to Max Verstappen, who has a long-term contract to drive for Red Bull. “Obviously we were discussing other options and also kept the Max idea, didn’t discount it completely, looking at what happened at Red Bull,” said Wolff.
“But instinctively that is the line-up, with these two that I always wanted.”
Antonelli, who turned 18 last week, has been a member of Mercedes’ young driver programme since he was 12. Wolff praised the loyalty shown by the Italian driver, and his father Marco, who races a Mercedes GT car.
“The humility is a major factor,” said Wolff. “Loyalty, as you can imagine, Kimi growing up and having scored the successes, there have been some of our competitors that have been after him, especially due to nationality reasons, and Marco Antonelli has always made clear ‘you gave us the opportunity and that’s why we’re sticking with you’.”
Mercedes gave Antonelli his first run in an official F1 practice session at Monza yesterday. However his session ended earlier after he crashed on his sixth lap. However Wolff is adamant the Formula 2 driver has demonstrated he is quick enough to success in F1.
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“That raw talent, that he definitely has, and an ability that you can’t train,” he said. “Like I said yesterday it’s easier to make someone calm down in terms of aggressiveness than the other way around.”
The team has not indicated the length of Antonelli’s contract but Wolff insisted they are committed to both their drivers for the future.
“Like we’ve done in the past, we always had very short contracts with each of the drivers, even with Lewis last time around it was ‘one plus one’. And this is in a way how the team operated.
“But I think most important is to see how George and Kimi settle in and I see no reason at that stage of not giving them the faith and the trust of going forward.
“What that means for the terms is something that we will discuss between ourselves, but we wouldn’t have gone for the…
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