Mercedes’ Toto Wolff backs youth as Kimi Antonelli closes in on Formula 1 title

SINGAPORE – With 20-year-old Kimi Antonelli and the second-youngest driver pairing on the grid, Mercedes have built their Formula 1 title charge on youth.

And that doctrine is set to bear fruit with the Italian on course to becoming the youngest world champion in the sport, eclipsing the record of Sebastian Vettel, who was 23 when he won the first of his four titles in 2010.

With just seven races remaining, including the Oct 9-11 Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix, Antonelli leads teammate George Russell, 28, by 84 teams in the drivers’ standings.

Backing young talent is a principle that Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has long championed.

The Austrian highlighted that the Mercedes junior programme was started “to empower” and nurture young talent.

Both Mercedes drivers are among the beneficiaries of the development programme, as Russell joined in 2017 and won the GP3 and Formula 2 titles in successive years. He went on to spend three seasons at Williams before earning his Mercedes seat in 2022.

Antonelli, then a 12-year-old go-karter, joined the junior programme in 2019 and rose through the ranks to make his Formula 1 debut six years later.

Wolff also traced that belief to his early years, recalling his first job as an assistant sales manager at an industrial steel company.

Speaking at a fireside chat at the Signify Lighting Application Centre in Toa Payoh on Oct 8, the 54-year-old said: “At my first job, the sales manager was headhunted by a bigger organisation, leaving me as the only sales person there.

“There were about 30 people in the department, and the owner of the business said, ‘We can’t leave you to run this’.

“Eventually, I left the company because of the lack of opportunity and the lack of trust. So I very much support the idea of young people coming up.”

That thinking shaped Mercedes’ decision to promote Antonelli into a race seat in 2025 as the replacement for seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who left to join Ferrari.

Antonelli finished seventh in his rookie season with three podiums and no wins. In 2026, he has won eight of 16 races, but Wolff said the youngster is still hungry for success.

He said: “Most of the time he (Antonelli) is so happy, you know, the truth is what he has achieved so far (winning a few races) and that is very good.

“And winning the championship is truly what you are in for, as a driver, and once you have won one, obviously you want to repeat it and the one thing that is not missing from him is hunger.”

Antonelli’s rise has also shifted the balance for Russell, who had begun the season as the team’s senior driver.

When asked about Russell’s position in the team dynamic, Wolff said: “George is an interesting one because he is absolutely motivated and happy to be challenged.”

Mercedes had also confirmed that the Briton will start the Singapore GP from the back of the grid after he retired with a power unit failure at the Bahrain GP in Malaysia on Oct 4.

Russell will serve a grid penalty in Singapore, as the replacement power unit takes him past the season's allocation of four per driver, triggering the penalty.

It applies only to the main race and not to the Oct 10 sprint, where Russell, who won in Singapore in 2025, can still score points.

Wolff added: “It hasn't worked for him so far this season because there were a few races that he wasn’t really happy with the car, and then a few races that we let him down.

“We have reached the boundaries of our technology, and sometimes technology fails because it is a tremendous amount of work, and in that respect, he’ll start in last position as a result of engine failure, but that’s only going to make him stronger in the years to come.”