Kimi Antonelli warned as Mercedes ‘cover their arse’ with key F1 2025 recruit

Juan Pablo Montoya believes Mercedes is “covering their arse” by signing Valtteri Bottas as reserve driver for the F1 2025 season.

The Brackley-based team signed its former race driver Valtteri Bottas as its reserve driver for this season, with rookie driver Kimi Antonelli making his debut in Formula 1 with Mercedes.

Juan Pablo Montoya: Valtteri Bottas a “safety net” for Mercedes

With Mercedes turning to junior star Kimi Antonelli as the successor to Lewis Hamilton as the seven-time F1 World Champion, the young Italian rookie is facing a major test in his first season in Formula 1.

Not only must he find his feet in Formula 1, the 2024 Formula 2 two-time race winner must do so under the spotlight of replacing Hamilton at a competitive Mercedes team.

Antonelli will be paired up with the known quantity that is George Russell, with the British driver having the upper hand on Hamilton in their final season together – Russell thus providing a very strong benchmark against which Antonelli will be measured.

Following his final season with Sauber, Mercedes signed the available Valtteri Bottas as the Finn returns to the fold at Brackley. Bottas raced as Hamilton’s teammate at Mercedes between 2017 and ’21, proving an exemplary teammate for Hamilton during his four titles between ’17 and ’20.

Bottas proving himself a driver able to slot in so strongly in a supporting role means he’s the perfect driver to keep Antonelli wary during this season, Juan Pablo Montoya believes, with Bottas a strong safety net for Mercedes should Antonelli fail to get with Formula 1.

“Kimi Antonelli is in the spotlight in one of the best teams out there with a teammate who is doing a mega job,” Montoya told?CasasDeApuestas.bet.

“And you’re being sold as the next Max Verstappen. If he doesn’t deliver, that’s tough.

“My reading is that with [Valtteri] Bottas, Mercedes would be covering their arse.

“He’s a safety net to have somebody in case it doesn’t work with Antonelli and he knows that.”

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Montoya’s comments echo the sentiment expressed by former F1 driver turned broadcaster Karun Chandhok.

Rather than Antonelli having no pressure on his shoulders in his rookie year, Chandhok said the immediate success of drivers like Hamilton, Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc, and George Russell has put an end to a learning period.

“I think whether you’re driving for the team who’s finished 10th in the championship or the team at the front of the grid, as a rookie in F1, there’s nowhere to hide,” Chandhok told the Sky F1 podcast.

“You’ve got people like us analysing every single sector of every single lap that they do.

“And for Kimi Antonelli, the fact that he’s coming in as a rookie, but with a top team, means you’re expected to deliver – as Lewis was when he arrived at McLaren and got nine podiums straight off the bat, as Oscar Piastri has shown in the last two years.

“You know, the expectations on rookies is high. You can’t just be there saying, ‘Oh, I’m here to learn’, anymore. That excuse has gone with the likes of Verstappen, Leclerc, Russell, Lewis before that – these rookies have just raised the bar of expectation.”

Speaking at the Italian Grand Prix, the weekend on which Mercedes announced Antonelli’s signing 48 hours after the Italian crashed shortly after the start of his first F1 weekend appearance at the wheel of Russell’s car in FP1, team boss Toto Wolff admitted signing Antonelli is a risk, but it’s a risk worth taking.

“There are some good indications that he has a lot of talent and a lot of potential, and now it needs to be conditioned. When you invest in young drivers, these things [crashes] happen,” he said.

“You need to be prepared to take that risk. I think we don’t want to slow a driver down. We’re happy to work with someone who has so much speed, that has confidence.”

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