Mercedes reveal the reason for promoting Antonelli as Hamilton's replacement
Mercedes' Driver Development Advisor Gwen Lagrue has revealed the attribute with which Andrea Kimi Antonelli persuaded the Brackley-based outfit about his talent.
Mercedes announced on the eve of last year's Italian Grand Prix that their F2 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli would replace Lewis Hamilton, who had confirmed his departure from the team back in February.
The Bologna-born driver, who competed in Formula 2 last season, has completed several test outings with Mercedes since the Brackley-based outfit announced his promotion. He first carried out running with the 2021 F1 Mercedes at the Red Bull Ring before racking up mileage with the 2022 F1 Mercedes in Imola and in Silverstone.
Antonelli then went on to gain experience at Spa in August before completing his first running on a race weekend. The 18-year-old took over George Russell's car in the opening practice session at the Italian Grand Prix, but a mistake on his second flying lap saw him crash into the barriers at the Parabolica corner.
He then travelled to Mexico, where he drove Lewis Hamilton's car in FP1 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, where he admittedly took a calmer approach to avoid any mistake.
The Mercedes junior has recently completed another test run, this time at Jerez, racking up laps in the 2021 F1 Mercedes at the beginning of January in nice weather conditions.
Reflecting on the initial phase of their collaboration, Gwen Lagrue, who has been responsible for Mercedes' young drivers' programme, insists he quickly realized that Antonelli was different to the other talented kids.
“With Kimi I noticed quite quickly he was already a bit different than other kids in karting. But back then my thought was: 'Okay, he's the best one I can have in go-karts', not even thinking about Formula 1.”
“And then, to me, Formula Regional has developed quite well recently in terms of driver preparation and we have seen over the years that all the kids coming from it - or before when it was called Formula Renault Eurocup - to F3 or F2; they were performing, and they were most of the time the ones winning.”
Lagrue has revealed that the adaptability with which Antonelli was able to get used to every new situation has been the key factor Mercedes felt the Italian was a "special" talent.
“Then when we did the first test in single-seaters, the way he adapted himself so quickly to pretty much every situation you started seeing that you have someone very special. Of course, he was confirming what we were thinking series after series, let’s say.”
“So by doing that, we were making sure that first he will learn the new F2 with the idea of eventually doing another year of F2 if it was challenging, or depending on the situation in F1, make sure that at least we will accelerate his preparation to Formula 1.”
