Toto Wolff to Autosprint: “Kimi Antonelli could bring the F1 world championship back to Italy”. Toto Wolff gave an exclusive interview to Autosprint, during which he talked about Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

Recently, Toto Wolff gave an exclusive interview to Autosprint, during which he talked about Andrea Kimi Antonelli and what he expects from the young Italian driver in the future. Below are the words of the Mercedes team principal.

Toto Wolff’s comments

Toto Wolff stated: “Many people working in Formula 1 are not interested in other motorsport categories. They are completely blind. If you try to gauge the situation, you’ll find many colleagues who don’t even know the results of Formula 3 or Formula 2. At Mercedes, along with Gwen Lagrue, who is in charge of our junior driver program, we are very interested in the dynamics of young drivers. We always want to understand how they grow and develop.”

Speaking about the young driver from Bologna, the Austrian added: “When Kimi joined our program, he was only twelve years old, but he already held many records on the tracks where he had raced. His karting career was very good, and even without any guarantees, this pushed us to focus on him. His performance level has remained very high over the years, and this has made us place more and more trust in him. However, I think the real adventure starts next year. Formula 1 is something unique, completely different from other categories. Kimi will have to start from scratch and face every challenge. He certainly has something special, but now this talent will have to show itself in Formula 1 as well.” – he pointed out.

In recent months, there were rumors about Toto Wolff’s possible interest in Max Verstappen. Addressing this, the Mercedes boss said: “Max was a driver of interest to us, but it quickly became clear that a move to Mercedes would probably never happen. For us, Kimi is the best possible choice. With him, we will make you proud. We expect to have exciting moments and more difficult ones, like what happened at Monza. But all of this is part of the learning curve, which we will try to accelerate as much as possible, so that by the first race of 2025, we will have two competitive drivers.” – the Austrian billionaire motorsport executive continued.

Toto Wolff concluded the conversation by saying: “In Italy, with the Charles Leclerc – Lewis Hamilton pairing, there will be many fans supporting Ferrari. I believe it will be an unprecedented situation in terms of intensity. But with us, there will be this young man who could be the future for Italy and the person capable of bringing the world championship back to them.”