Post-Hamilton
Since the day Ferrari officially announced the hiring of Lewis Hamilton for 2025, one of the biggest general questions has focused on the name of the driver who will take the place of the seven-time world champion starting next season. In recent days, especially after the post-race tensions between Jos Verstappen and Christian Horner in Bahrain, the incredible option of Max Verstappen has opened up.
The candidates
However, before the Dutchman, the profiles were (and are) still others: Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, as well as a young Italian talent from Mercedes like Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The 17-year-old from Bologna, making his debut last week in F2 after competing in and winning the European Formula Regional, had in fact been indicated by team principal Toto Wolff not so much as a concrete hypothesis, but as a talent to be taken into serious consideration for the future.
Wolff's mistake
From that moment on, Antonelli was often referred to as a driver with a Verstappen-style evolution of his career, but in hindsight it was Wolff himself who regretted having spoken about the promising Italian, especially after Prema's disappointing performance in Bahrain: “Yes, a championship-winning team that ends up in seventeenth and eighteenth place in Formula 2 is not where it should be at all – he told planetf1.com – but I think you can look at a teammate as a point of comparison. Oliver Bearman is a great driver.”
“Anyway, I feel guilty for having talked so much about Antonelli – he concluded – we'll see how the next races develop. I'm in no rush to make a decision on the drivers. Lewis rushed meso this time I will take it easy and evaluate the market.”
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