Mercedes boss Toto Wolff revealed how the team avoided ‘burning out’ Kimi Antonelli after his rookie season in Formula 1 with some mistakes in 2025. The executive stated that the team adopted a patient and conscious approach to handle the pressure faced by the young driver.
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This strategy seems to have paid off quickly in 2026. The Italian started the season strong and leads the drivers’ championship after the first three rounds, with a nine-point advantage over his teammate, George Russell.
Despite the evident speed, Antonelli had an inconsistent first year in Formula 1, with mistakes throughout the season and a particularly difficult phase during the European part of the calendar. This scenario raised doubts about his ability to compete directly with Russell, especially when Mercedes began to be considered one of the title favorites.
Even so, Wolff defended the German team’s decision to bet on the young driver, who was only eighteen years old in his rookie season last year. The executive highlighted that managing pressure is one of the most important factors in evaluating young talents.
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“I was a driver, so I understand the pressures these young people are exposed to. And they are multidimensional pressures. When we see a promising driver, we evaluate talent, raw speed, development capability, but also pressure management. Because in Formula 1 everything revolves around that and the ability to perform under those conditions,” Wolff said in an interview with The Athletic.
The Mercedes boss also compared his team’s approach with that of other young driver programs, which tend to act with less patience. According to him, the choice to keep Antonelli even after some mistakes was a conscious decision: “When you look at the policy of other junior teams, they fire drivers if they are not doing well after three races. We did the opposite with Kimi,” he added.
Wolff also said the team knew the first year would bring difficulties: “Basically, we put an eighteen-year-old in a team, with the best record among junior drivers in Karting and junior categories, but he made many mistakes in the first year. People were very critical, saying he was too young and that we were burning the driver. But that was an absolutely calculated risk. We knew that would happen in the first year,” concluded the Mercedes boss.
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