Italian youngster Andrea Kimi Antonelli will join George Russell as a driver at the Mercedes-Benz AMG Formula 1 team in 2025.<\/p>\n
Already widely rumored in the prior month, Mercedes formally announced the decision this week.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Antonelli, 18, fills the seat of seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton<\/strong> who joins Ferrari next year<\/a>. Hamilton won six of his titles with Mercedes but the team’s poor performance in recent years prompted him to change squads.<\/p>\n Hamilton will fill the seat of Carlos Sainz at Ferrari. Although there was early talk of Sainz possibly joining Mercedes<\/strong>, or even Sauber which becomes Audi in 2026<\/a>, the Spanish driver in July confirmed he will drive with Williams<\/a> as the replacement for U.S. driver Logan Sargeant.<\/p>\n Antonelli was a participant in Mercedes’ driver development program and delivered multiple successes in ADAC and Italian F4 championships<\/strong> in 2022, as well as in the highly competitive Formula Regional European championship in 2023. He’s also had some wins in F2 this year.<\/p>\n Mercedes said the young driver has shown impressive speed, including during a stint at a practice session for last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, his first time participating in an F1 weekend. However he crashed shortly after the start of the session.<\/p>\n Antonelli won’t be the only new driver on the grid next year. Australian Jack Doohan joins Williams and Brit Oliver Bearman joins Haas.<\/p>\n Sauber and RB<\/strong> each have an empty seat remaining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Italian youngster Andrea Kimi Antonelli will join George Russell as a driver at the Mercedes-Benz AMG Formula 1 team in 2025. Already widely rumored in the prior month, Mercedes formally announced the decision this week. Antonelli, 18, fills the seat of seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton who joins Ferrari next year. Hamilton won six […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-concepts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/autosector.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}