{"id":352405,"date":"2025-08-17T19:45:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T19:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/352405\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T19:45:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T19:45:12","slug":"toto-wolff-ruled-out-kimi-antonelli-loan-after-seeing-another-mercedes-talent-lose-his-f1-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/352405\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff ruled out Kimi Antonelli loan after seeing another Mercedes talent lose his F1 seat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In the midst of a rollercoaster rookie season in F1, rumours of a possible loan move for Kimi Antonelli emerged after it looked like the young Italian was feeling the pressure that comes with driving for Mercedes.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Speaking exclusively to F1 Oversteer, the voice of F1 TV\u2019s coverage, Alex Jacques<\/a>, talked about the reasons why Mercedes<\/a> boss Toto Wolff<\/a> ruled out a possible loan move, revealing that the team principal was previously \u2018stung\u2019 by past loan deals going south.<\/p>\n

Antonelli is waiting to sign a new deal with Mercedes<\/a>, after signing a one-year rookie deal with the team to replace the outgoing Lewis Hamilton in the middle of last season. <\/p>\n

Martin Brundle questioned Wolff\u2019s decision<\/a> to put Antonelli<\/a> straight into the works Mercedes team, wondering why Wolff didn\u2019t go down the same route as he did with George Russell, in giving him a few years to get to grips with the pace of F1 before putting him into a competitive seat.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong>\u00a0Know all about 2025 Mercedes F1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli including stats<\/a><\/p>\n

Toto Wolff was \u2018stung\u2019 by losing out on Max Verstappen and a team reneging on an Esteban Ocon deal in 2019<\/p>\n

Speaking to F1 Oversteer, Jacques gave his reasoning for Brundle\u2019s question, highlighting a past loan deal for Esteban Ocon that fell through, as well as the elusive signature of Max Verstappen that Wolff has been vying for since 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he was very stung by missing out on Max Verstappen,\u201d Jacques started. \u201cHe was only in his second year as a team principal in 2015, and he got outflanked.<\/p>\n

\u201cFerrari, Red Bull and Mercedes were all in for Max Verstappen, and Red Bull had the junior team. They could elevate him to Formula 1 immediately, and Wolff lost out on Max Verstappen, who\u2019s gone on to win the most races of the decade so far.<\/p>\n\nSERIES<\/strong><\/td>\nRACES<\/strong><\/td>\nWINS<\/strong><\/td>\nPOLES<\/strong><\/td>\nPODIUMS<\/strong><\/td>\nPOS.<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nItalian F4<\/td>\n20<\/td>\n13<\/td>\n14<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n1st<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nADAC F4<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n12<\/td>\n1st<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nFR Europe<\/td>\n20<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n11<\/td>\n1st<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nFR Middle East<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n1st<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\nF2<\/td>\n26<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n6th<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

Kimi Antonelli\u2019s racing record between 2022 and 2024<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, he\u2019s been stung by that in the past. So, I think that informed his faith in giving a young driver a chance earlier on. And then you mentioned a loan deal with another team.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been stung by that in the past as well, with Esteban Ocon, who had to sit on the sidelines for a year after a team reneged on an agreement that Wolff believed they had, and he lost out on a year of racing as a result of that; he had to be a reserve at Mercedes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wolff has tried several times to sign Verstappen<\/a>, with it previously being reported that the Austrian was in pursuit of the Dutchman during the winter break between the 2020 and 2021 season. If Wolff was successful at the time, F1 may have missed out on one of the most intense title fights in its history.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong>\u00a0All you need to know about Mercedes F1 CEO and team principal Toto Wolff<\/a><\/p>\n

Both of those deals going south \u2018played an enormous part\u2019 on Toto Wolff wanting to keep Kimi Antonelli<\/p>\n

With 2026 bringing new regulations to F1, Jacques\u2019 understanding of Wolff\u2019s intentions is to get a year of F1 experience under the 18-year-old\u2019s belt before starting afresh alongside the new regs to give him the best opportunity of competing from the get-go next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I think both of those things played an enormous part. We know Kimi Antonelli is a hugely rated prospect, and realistically, conversations in the paddock always talk about the next big thing,\u201d Jacques continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, Kimi Antonelli had been on the radar of the paddock for a long time. Mercedes got him first, okay? They got him signed to the Driver Academy. But as we\u2019ve seen with drivers and driver\u2019s academies in the past, that\u2019s no guarantee either.<\/p>\n

\"KimiPhoto by Kym Illman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, I think the combination of everything I\u2019ve spoken about meant that Toto Wolff was absolutely determined that there would be no repeat; he didn\u2019t want to have to deal with another team. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted one year, I believe, of Antonelli learning the ropes, ready for the big regulation reset with a year of experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s had a huge amount of testing with old Mercedes machinery as well. And I think all of that informed his desire to vault him up the ladder far quicker than you would do if Lewis Hamilton had been a long-term contract, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young Italian will have his sights set on Monza as a track where he can regain some confidence in himself after he crashed Russell\u2019s W15 just ten minutes into his first F1 practice session at the circuit last year. <\/p>\n

Jacques previously stated that Mercedes \u2018regret\u2019 what happened<\/a> that day, as the team chose to run Antonelli on a set of soft compound tyres to get him on the limit as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the midst of a rollercoaster rookie season in F1, rumours of a possible loan move for Kimi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[124448,13328,560,4199,707,4200,4859,79,14319,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-352405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-alex-jacques","9":"tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","10":"tag-exclusives","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-mercedes","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-toto-wolff","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115045828140919760","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}