‘Lewis is leaving, it could be you’: How Antonelli found out about Mercedes F1 promotion

It was a sliding doors moment in F1 history, and now we know the back story to the moment Kimi Antonelli replaced Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes.

It was early 2024 when the massive news broke that seven-time world champion Hamilton was leaving the Silver Arrows for Ferrari after a glorious run of success which delivered six of those championship wins.

Had Hamilton stayed put, we could now be talking about a record eighth title for the 41-year-old British superstar in 2026, instead of the tiring battle to transform the Scuderia back into a title contender.

Instead it is the 20-year-old Antonelli who is settling into life as the sport's youngest ever world champion, after claiming the crown in Mexico City earlier this month.

Bradley Lord, deputy team principal at Mercedes, has revealed just how the passing of the torch happened, and how the team prepared Antonelli for future greatness.

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How Kimi Antonelli found out 'it might be you'

He says team principal Toto Wolff always backed the move to promote the young Italian, telling the High Performance Racing podcast: “The guy who was adamant from the very first moment, literally the day Lewis said he was leaving was Toto.

“Kimi was testing at Silverstone in Formula 3. We called him into the factory and I was sitting there with Toto, myself, Kimi and Rosa (who had worked with him through the junior program and still works with him now on all his PR and scheduling and you know a load of the activity he does) and Toto said: 'Kimi, Lewis is leaving, it could be you.

“And you just saw both Christmas arriving on the 2nd of February, whichever date it was, then he's trying to play it cool. And then he's thinking, ‘holy moly, I've got a lot of work to do between now and then’."

Silverstone super show sealed Mercedes decision

Lord says all the data Mercedes were monitoring suggested that promoting Antonelli was the right decision, but it was one particular performance on track in July 2024 which sealed the deal.

“As he was doing that TPC work, you could, we were getting the engineering reports back and you could see that he had the potential to be able to go on and, be a really, really good Formula 1 driver.

“We took the decision, actually finally took the decision, the week after he'd won his first F2 race at Silverstone. So he won a sort of wet F2 race and did it in pretty conclusive fashion. And that's where we said 'yes, let's do this'."

How Mercedes avoided Antonelli 'drag'

Now the decision was set in stone, Mercedes had to ready their prodigiously talented teenager for everything that would come with being an F1 driver.

“From that point on, it was just right, how do we prepare him the best?" said Lord.

“How do we get him used to all those photographers taking his picture? How do we get used to all the PR events he's got to do, the marketing, the sponsor stuff, and uh the jet lag, the flights, all the craziness that comes in F1 that you don't get in F2? And then prepping him on the engineering side because that's the huge workload step.

“The driving might be the same when you're in the car, but the the workload around the car is enormous. So we just tried to do the best possible job around all the parts of the team."

Lord and Mercedes knew that this wasn't just about the work Antonelli would do around his driving. It would be lightening the load when it came to everything else.

“Priorities, the engineering, priorities, the performance, but all the other stuff. We always say marketing, PR, it has to happen, we can't make him faster but we can add a load of drag to a driver's race weekend and a load of distraction to their mental prep if we don't get it right. And so we've worked really hard to try and get it right from day one."

A global sensation, but he's still the same guy

While Antonelli is now a global sensation, Lord says he remains the same person who found out that his world was changing on that cold day in February 2024.

“You watch him sail through the paddock now. And he's still very much himself. He's not changing because of the pressure or the attention. He's just authentically him.

"And that's what we need to help him stay and be and you know flourish as for as long as possible.”

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Written by

Graham Shaw - Consultant Editor

Digital sports leader with 30 years of senior level experience running global brands. Built sportinglife.com to be a behemoth in the UK as well as being in charge of the Planet Sport network of sites including planetf1.com, football365.com, teamtalk.com and planetrugby.com. Then grew goal.com to be the world's biggest soccer website in 18 languages and 37 territories. Was GM of Portals for Perform Group (now DAZN) with overall responsibility for sportingnews.com, spox.de and voetbalzone.nl.

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