Mercedes recently confirmed its 2026 driver line-up, officially announcing Kimi Antonelli alongside George Russell. This decision reflects the team’s confidence in the young Italian talent, who experienced a debut season full of ups and downs but showed steady growth. With the introduction of new technical regulations and a year of experience under his belt, Toto Wolff believes the next championship will reveal the “real Kimi.”
Wolff focused on Antonelli’s “2026 version”
The Mercedes team principal expressed strong confidence in Antonelli’s development, emphasizing that 2026 represents a fresh start for the nineteen-year-old driver:
“Kimi has a long-term future. I think it’s very challenging to enter this generation of cars without having driven them against all the drivers who already know ground-effect cars. Next year will be a new beginning. He now knows all the circuits, understands media pressure, and how to work effectively within the team, so next year we’ll see the real Kimi,” Toto Wolff said.
Despite a debut season marked by some difficult moments, Kimi Antonelli showed clear signs of improvement in the second half of 2025, achieving solid results: fourth in Baku, fifth in Singapore, and sixth in Mexico. When asked if Kimi Antonelli could become a world champion, Toto Wolff answered without hesitation: “Yes, absolutely.”
Mercedes and the technical challenges
Beyond driver development, Mercedes will need to address the performance consistency of its car, which in 2025 showed significant fluctuations from track to track. Toto Wolff highlighted the difficulties in correlating simulator and wind tunnel data with real-world performance:
“It’s so hard to find a correlation between the simulator and the wind tunnel, and then you go on track and everything is different. We didn’t expect to be so competitive in Singapore [where George Russell won], but we were… It’s a bit of a surprise with the new rules, and all the leading teams seem to struggle with correlation issues.”
Looking ahead to 2026 and a refreshed technical regulations framework, Mercedes aims to consolidate its competitiveness, investing both in Antonelli’s emerging talent and in refining its technology. In this evolving technical context, Toto Wolff firmly believes that 2026 will be a breakthrough year for Kimi Antonelli — and perhaps also for the Silver Arrows.
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