George Russell is preparing for life at Mercedes this season with an entirely new dynamic within the team.
After three years as Lewis Hamilton’s teammate with the Silver Arrows, George Russell has a driver at the other end of the experience spectrum alongside him in 2025.
Mercedes decided to replace the seven-time world champion with a driver less than half of his age: Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
Antonelli has had a fast-tracked racing career up to this point, skipping Formula 3 completely and only spending a season in Formula 2.
He finished sixth in the championship last year, behind fellow rookies Gabriel Bortoleto and Isack Hadjar, but scoring more points than Prema teammate and new Haas driver Oliver Bearman.
Mercedes have been considering Antonelli as a future F1 star for some time, with the likes of Frederic Vesti and Mick Schumacher leapfrogged by the teenager in their driver program.
Antonelli has done thousands of kilometres of private testing and while that would have helped him learn all about Mercedes’ F1 cars, it isn’t a substitute for racing against some of the best drivers in the world.
Russell is already confident that Antonelli will be fast this year, but in an interview on the team’s YouTube channel, he admitted there’s one thing he’s seen from the 18-year-old away from the track that’s really surprised him.
George Russell ‘surprised’ by new Mercedes teammate Andrea Kimi Antonelli
Russell asked Antonelli what’s one thing about him that surprises people, but before the young Italian could answer, he said: “I’d say one thing that you’ve surprised me [with], to be honest, is, like, you talk very well with all of these cameras considering how young you are.”
Antonelli replied and said: “No, actually it’s what most people tell me, to be honest!
“Also, some Italians are surprised by my English.”
Russell complimented his new teammate and continued: “Yeah, your English is good! And they might be a bit hurt by how good your English is.”
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Antonelli explained: “Yeah because I have to be honest, us Italians, we’re not really good at English.
“We’re really good with hand gestures of course. So, when we go to a country and we don’t really know how to speak the language, we speak with our hands.”
George Russell could be the dark horse in the 2025 Formula 1 drivers’ championship
While team principal Toto Wolff is lowering initial expectations on Antonelli going into his maiden Formula 1 season, Russell will have his sights set on challenging at the front of the grid this year.
It would be wrong to say that Russell was in Hamilton’s shadow at Mercedes over the past three years.
He outqualified the 40-year-old more often than not last year and finished ahead of him in the drivers’ championship.
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However, while Mercedes won’t be ignoring Antonelli’s needs in 2025, Russell has the chance to put his stamp on the team in the same way Max Verstappen has at Red Bull.
If McLaren and Ferrari’s drivers split points between them on a regular basis, that gives Russell and Verstappen the chance to capitalise even if they’re in slightly slower cars.
All will be revealed during pre-season testing and the first race in Australia as to whether that’s going to be possible, but Russell will recognise he has an opportunity to solely lead a top F1 team that doesn’t come around very often.
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