After taking a win in the Hungarian F2 feature race, Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s ‘focus is F2’ despite growing rumours of him moving to F1 next season.
Kimi Antonelli took his first F2 win around Silverstone during the sprint race last weekend. An impressive display in wet conditions caused rumours to arise around the young Italian. Specifically, in connection to the 2025 Mercedes seat.
In the short sprint race, he managed to build an impressive 8.6 seconds gap to those behind. Then, in Hungary, Antonelli repeated the performance in the feature race with 12 seconds between him and second.
When the Italian discussed the win with media after the race. He admitted, “Today our main goal was to try to do the best race possible, and it turns out we came away with a win.”
A mid race safety car made Antonelli’s alternate strategy pay off, allowing him to maintain the gap. “Obviously, with the second safety car, I knew it was the moment. But I think the pace was really strong during the whole race. I think we really deserved it.”
Antonelli talked about how he learnt from his mistakes in the sprint race. He mentioned, “Yesterday, I made a mistake in the run. I flat spotted the tyre and despite knowing that I kept really pushing, and degraded it a lot.” However he continued to say, “It was good learning for today [The Feature Race].”
The feature race win brought about questions regarding Antonelli’s future within F2. He remains ahead of his PREMA teammate, Oliver Bearman, as well as now having more wins this season than the Brit.
Now, with Bearman taking a seat at Haas for 2025, questions are being asked about Kimi Antonelli and whether he deserves a Mercedes or Williams’ seat for 2025.
“I don’t know if I would be ready.”
When asked after Hungary if he felt like he would be ready to take the Mercedes seat for 2025. He remained cautious. “I mean, I don’t know if I would be ready. To be honest, I still do make quite a few mistakes.”
However, he went on to say, “I’m trying to improve and to not make the same mistakes again.”
Antonelli also noted how having Bearman as a teammate was useful as he can ‘learn a lot from him’ especially after Antonelli made the jump from F3.
Although there is a growing momentum behind Kimi Antonelli’s journey into F1, he was honest with where his focus is now. “I repeat, the focus is F2, trying to get some good results and try to finish the season in the best way possible.”
With many seats in F1 yet to be decided Antonelli said, “The excitement around is really high with all the talking. But yeah, we’ll see what’s going to happen next year.”
Many drivers have been linked with the 2025 Mercedes seat outside of Antonelli. With drivers like Sainz, Bottas and even Mick Schumacher being named.
However, it still seems as though the 17-year-old Italian driver is the team’s first choice. Performances like Silverstone and Hungary were be vital to his chances.
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