Former Formula 1 team boss Franz Tost gave his opinion on Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the driver Mercedes chose to replace Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton in 2025.
Antonelli will be under the spotlight in 2025 after his meteoric rise up the motorsport ranks, skipping Formula 3. He will have completed one Formula 2 season when he makes his full-time F1 debut with Mercedes alongside George Russell.
A person well placed to give an opinion about Antonelli is Tost, who has run Red Bull's F1 junior team since 2006 and until his retirement at the end of the 2023 F1 season.
Tost ran the Faenza-based F1 team that carried several names over the years; starting with Scuderia Toro Rosso (2006-2019), then Scuderia AlphaTauri (2020 - 2023) and finally the Visa Cash App RB F1 team in 2024. During those years, many drivers made it into the big league under his watch, the two most successful being Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen. Others include Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo, Pierre Gasly, and the list goes on.
Speaking to Formula 1's official website about Antonelli, Tost, a former racing driver himself, said: "The speed is there – you can see it.
"It’s always a little bit difficult for a young driver to come into a works team," he added, "especially to a team like Mercedes, because there you are really focused [on], but I’m sure that Toto [Wolff, Mercedes boss] and his team will prepare him in the best possible way for the next season.
Driving not the problems, other aspects of the job are
"From the driving [side], I think it’s absolutely no problem for him. He’s fast, he’s high skilled and he will show a good performance," the Austrian maintained.
However, there are other aspects of being an F1 driver that could pose a challenge for the young Antonelli in his debut F1 season.
Tost explained: "The question is from the mental side, because as a young driver in F1, you have to work together with so many different parties.
"The technical side, the chassis engineer, the engine engineer, the aero engineer, all the data engineers, and that means there are a lot of questions coming up.
"You also have to do the marketing work, you have to do the press work, so it’s a lot for a young driver. The teams always must be careful with young drivers not to overload them, so that on Sunday, when the red lights go out, they are not tired," he warned.
As for the advice Tost would give to Antonelli, he concluded: "Just to look forward to being an F1 driver, be focused, and do the job!"
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