Mercedes boss Toto Wolff says there will be times when Andrea Kimi Antonelli makes the team “rip our hair out” during his rookie F1 season in 2025.

18-year-old Antonelli will replace Ferrari-bound168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: Lewis Hamilton and partner 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:George Russell at Merced�𝓡�es when he contests his debut F1 season this year.

The Mercedes prodigy has been promoted after just a single season in Formula 2 and will complete a rem♊arkable ascension to F1 having skipped Formula 3 entirely.

Antonelli made headlines when he crashed heavily on his F1 race weekend debut in practice at the Italian Grand Prix last year.&ཧnbsp;

The incident occurred l🐟ess than 10 minutes into FP1 but Antonelli had been lighting up the timing sheet before he lost cܫontrol of his car.

Wolff has admitted he is expecting Antonelli to make plenty of mistakes as ಌhe learns the ropes in F1.

“We ꦅneed to wait to look at it, 2025 same regulations you can see that the pecking order varies depending on the track and the opportunities there to fight for victories, if we can do that we can fight for a title,” Wolff told media including mahbx.com.

“It’s also going to be a year where George [Russell] will settle in as being a senior driver and Kimi will rip ou🍒r hair out, other times we will see moments of ꦉbrilliance.

“It’s a year of managing expectations for Kimi, prepa💧ring our 🔯driver line-up for 2026.”

Mercedes managing expectations

While Wolff believes Antonelli can become a leading driver in F1, he has been quick to downplay expectations for the teenager ahead of his rookie cꦏampaign.

Speaking to German pu൲blication Auto Motor und Sp🌜ort, Wolff insisted Mercedes are viewing 2025 as a “year of transition” ahead of a major rules overhaul in 2026.

“We want to prepare Andrea for 2026,” Wolff said.

“If you expect him [Antonelli] to be on pole position in Melbourne, win the race and immediately compete for the championship, then the risk is high 𓆉because th♕at won't happen.

“If we take into account that he is only 18-years-old, very talent𓄧ed, but needs to gro🔜w and make mistakes first, the risk is less.

“We see 202൲5 as a year of transition and we want to prepare him for 2026, when everything will restart again for everyone.”

Antonelli won two races on his way to finishing sixth in the 2024 F2 drivers’ s✨tandings.

That followed championship successes in Italian and ADAC F4 in 2022, and further t⛦itles in the Formula Regional European Championship and Formula Regional Middle East Championship in 2023.&nb𓆏sp;