Mercedes are in observation mode with regards to its F1 driver choice, as it contemplates all its options with time at hand.
Ever since the announcement from Lewis Hamilton to leave Mercedes, the rumours about the second seat has been ongoing. Not just with the names like Carlos Sainz or Valtteri Bottas, but their junior driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli has been hot as well.
Apart from that, Mercedes has been quite vocal about Max Verstappen, even though the Dutchman has a Red Bull contract. So much so that there were speculation about him having a meeting with the people to talk about a potential switch.
The said meeting was to take place after the Sunday of Miami GP, but Toto Wolff denied of any such thing. “I can’t comment too much, just what I can say is there is no meeting on Monday,” he said at that time. But the insistence on Verstappen remained.
Wolff noted meetings taking place always with someone or the other but that doesn’t implies any decision done. He stated Mercedes has gone into observation mode not just with Verstappen, but other drivers like Sainz as well who is delivering race after race.
“There’s always plenty of meetings,” said Wolff. “I can’t really say about the second driver, I think we’ve talked about the possibilities, I want to be fair to these guys and not make it look like we are paying chess with humans because we are not doing that. We want to take our time, see where Max’s thinking goes.
“And at the same time monitor the other drivers, Carlos was very strong again in Miami and that’s why we are a little bit on an observation mode at the moment. I think for all of the teams he [Max] is, and as I said before I was him, I wouldn’t leave, at least for 2025, but it’s all in his [hands].
“He’s the leading driver, he’s the top guy at the moment and that’s why he needs to take those decisions and there may not be any decisions to take, maybe everything continues like it is, but that is also guidance for us,” summed up Wolff, who when asked about Adrian Newey’s influence, noted that he doesn’t know if it has any as yet.
“Adrian is an icon of the sport and I think he said he doesn’t know yet what to do and I don’t know what influence that has,” said Wolff. Outside the Red Bull and Verstappen situation, his own junior has made headlines off-late with the superlicense request.
Rumours put him strongly in the seat at Williams for Imola, but that was denied by James Vowles and even Wolff. Antonelli has been testing wit Mercedes for some weeks now, but a race seat in 2024 seems unlikely – although a FP1 chance is more likely to happen.
“As for Kimi, so many stories were created, it doesn’t do him any favour because he needs to concentrate on his F2 campaign, he’s doing lots of testing for us in order to bring him up to speed and I think this decision of the second driver is weeks if not months away,” said Wolff. “We didn’t make any approach to the FIA about getting an earlier release.”
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