Mercedes deliver 2025 driver update after back-to-back F1 wins secured

Toto Wolff says Mercedes’ back-to-back victories in Austria and Silverstone will not “influence” his thinking as he weighs up the candidates to replace Lewis Hamilton next season.

A driver short for the 2025 season, much has been written, said and speculated about Mercedes’ driver line-up with the vote split between Kimi Antonelli and Carlos Sainz.

Kimi Antonelli? Carlos Sainz? Toto Wolff is still deciding

While the latter has been billed a “safe bet”, and by Wolff himself, Antonelli is Mercedes’ future.

Although Antonelli has shown in the junior series that he is talent for the future, even a potential F1 World Champion, stepping up from Formula 2 into a team fighting for race wins and even World titles is a big ask of anyone.

But can the team risk putting a rookie in the car when there is the potential, based on a snap judgement of their recent progress, to fight for next year’s championship titles?

Wolff insists the Brackley squad’s recent progress and the what-ifs it raises, won’t factor in his decision.

“It doesn’t influence our thinking,” he told the media, including PlanetF1.com.

“I’ve always said we need a car that goes quick and when we have a car that goes quick, we put the driver in and we get interesting. Interesting for many drivers.

“But, in a way, I think we need to stay calm and continue the season, continue to focus on the car and then look at whether the options are still the same and… but it’s not like this [winning races is] changing everything and [turning] upside down.”

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The 17-year-old bolstered his chances of securing the Mercedes seat at Silverstone on Saturday where he won the Formula 2 Sprint.

Coming out on top in the tricky conditions, the Italian not only showed his mental fortitude as six of his rivals, including his team-mate Oliver Bearman, failed to finish, but also his ability to handle changeable conditions.

“F2 is so difficult this year because the car… you can see that him and Bearman are struggling a lot with the car and he isn’t happy with his driving and not [having] the pace in the race,” said Wolff.

“But seeing him on Saturday walking over the water, at times two seconds quicker than everybody else, you can see the talent and the ability and the potential this young guy has.

“Winning that race I think took a lot of weight off his shoulders.”

Alas, he didn’t finish Sunday’s Feature race due to a crash that was not his fault but his Saturday points elevated him to eighth in the Drivers’ standings.

Wolff, standing with Antonelli on the Sunday of the British Grand Prix as they applauded Lewis Hamilton’s final Silverstone win as a Mercedes driver, was well aware of the magnitude of that moment.

“I had this moment where you see the greatest British driver checking out with us at the British Grand Prix and in the garage, you have this young Italian that hasn’t got a driving licence even, that was watching that scene, and I bet he thought, ‘I want to be that one day’.

“Maybe not here, maybe Monza,” he said.

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