Juan Pablo Montoya reflects on “terrible situation” for Kimi Antonelli: “He’s Lewis Hamilton’s heir”. Juan Pablo Montoya reflects on "terrible situation" for Kimi Antonelli.

Six rookies on track
With a championship set to see an unprecedented fight for the World Championship, 2025 will present another very exciting challenge that is also highly anticipated by the drivers themselves: the rookie of the year battle. Isack Hadjar’s official confirmation at Racing Bulls guarantees that the Frenchman will be the sixth driver on the grid, ready to begin his first F1 season.

The Formula 2 vice-champion will replace Liam Lawson, now hired by Red Bull, who in the 2023-2024 season also found himself at the starting blocks for the first time, but not as an official driver, as he will be in 2025. The same situation occurred last season for two other profiles like Jack Doohan, at Alpine, and Oliver Bearman, first at Ferrari and then at Haas. Both will return to Alpine and Haas, while two other drivers will make their absolute debut, having never raced before: F2 champion Gabriel Bortoleto and Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Juan Pablo Montoya speaks
A six-way battle that is already generating the first opinions from the public, eagerly awaiting the green light, with countless opinions on who, among these rookies, will come out on top. Among the opinions is that of former driver Juan Pablo Montoya, who expressed his preference on Istant Casino: “Ollie Bearman is probably the one who has done the best work of all, and I think he’s probably in the best position among all of them,” he specified. “His maturity is very important. I think his approach is very good.”

On the other hand, the Colombian pointed out the one who, in his opinion, doesn’t start with the favorites: Andrea Kimi Antonelli. Already considered a “serious problem for Mercedes” after the FP1 sessions in Monza and Mexico, Juan Pablo Montoya again highlighted the significant difficulties the 18-year-old from Bologna will face: “Kimi is in a terrible situation because the opportunity is extraordinary, but there’s a lot of hype around him, in addition to the way the team has built him up to justify the fact that he’s replacing Lewis Hamilton as the next big F1 prospect. He will either become a big star or it will be very difficult for him, and right now he’s facing a very complete George.”