In the wake of seven-time F1 champion Lewis Hamilton’s recently announced move from Mercedes to Ferrari for 2025, one name from F2 has been touted as his possible replacement: 17-year-old Mercedes junior and series rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Does F2 world feed commentator Alex Jacques consider such a move to be realistic?

By George Sanderson

Official F2 testing only began last week, but Antonelli is already being viewed as a prospect for an F1 seat as an F2 rookie.

The Italian has been incredibly impressive over the last two years. In 2022, he dominated the Italian F4 Championship and took the ADAC F4 title despite missing a round. Then, in 2023, he won the Formula Regional championships in both the Middle East and Europe.

This form has spurred Antonelli’s meteoric rise through the junior single-seater ranks that saw him skip F3 entirely and secure a drive with Prema Racing in F2 for 2024. But speaking on the Feeder Series Podcast, the man who will spend 2024 commentating over Antonelli’s season still believes a move to Mercedes for next year is unlikely.

“Antonelli would have to completely dominate the championship to have a chance of starting the 2025 season in that Mercedes team,” Jacques says.

“I just don’t see [Mercedes team principal Toto] Wolff putting someone, no matter how good they are, in that situation.”

Jacques explained that the person taking the available seat at Mercedes must be able to “replace the presence of Lewis Hamilton.”

“Whether it be a world champion, a race winner, or a hotshot talent,” Hamilton’s replacement will have big shoes to fill, Jacques says.

“You need something to lift that team. That’s either going to have to be a massive name of huge calibre or a mega talent, but I still don’t see Antonelli starting [the season with Mercedes].”

Antonelli has never lost a championship that he has completed. Jacques believes that despite Antonelli’s potential, Wolff would be more inclined to send the Mercedes junior on a similar path to what George Russell, Hamilton’s current teammate, followed five years ago by starting out at Williams Racing.

“[Wolff] does not strike me as a team principal who would take that sort of risk, and no matter how talented a driver is, it is easier to do a [Charles] Leclerc in a Sauber, a Russell in a Williams.”

Such a move would give Antonelli time to adjust to the demands of Formula 1 without the pressure of “consistently having to perform for what is on paper the second-best team,” Jacques argues.

Potentially standing in the way of this are two of Williams’ current junior drivers: Zak O’Sullivan and Franco Colapinto. Both will be joining Antonelli as F2 rookies this season and are both highly rated by Williams team principal James Vowles.

While Antonelli won the Formula Regional European Championship on his first try, O’Sullivan and Colapinto finished their second F3 campaigns in second and fourth respectively – O’Sullivan with four victories compared to Colapinto’s two.

Does Jacques see Antonelli ‘jumping the queue’ and landing himself a Williams seat? “I think Williams are going to respect their juniors,” he answers.

Williams kept hold of struggling academy graduate Logan Sargeant for a second F1 season this year even with Mercedes junior and 2023 F2 runner-up Frederik Vesti in the conversation for his seat. That decision shows the Grove team’s loyalty to its junior driver programme and its reluctance to act as a Mercedes junior team under Vowles, who himself spent 22 years in Brackley as a strategist.

With hype around Antonelli building to levels arguably not seen since 2020 F2 champion Mick Schumacher’s debut F2 season five years ago, the task for the 17-year-old Italian is simple: prove people right.

“They’ll take him ahead of their juniors, I believe, if he lives up to the hype,” Jacques says.

Antonelli enters 2024 on a level playing field with the rest of the F2 grid as the series adopts a new car after six years. The Mercedes junior still faces a fiercely competitive grid with 10 other F1 juniors, including Prema teammate Ollie Bearman, recently confirmed to be getting six FP1 practice sessions with Haas in F1 in 2024.

Hear the full thoughts of Jacques, F3 commentator Chris McCarthy and YouTuber Josh Revell on the latest episode of the Feeder Series Podcast, hosted by Jim Kimberley.

Header photo credit: Sebastiaan Rozendaal / Dutch Photo Agency via Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine