Mercedes pick teenager Antonelli to replace Hamilton

 AFP/Mohd Rasfan
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MONZA – Italian teenager Andrea Kimi Antonelli will step up to Formula One next season and replace Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes, the team announced on Saturday.
Antonelli, who turned 18 on August 25, will partner George Russell, another product of the team’s junior programme, after Hamilton moves to Ferrari after this year.
“Our 2025 driver line-up combines experience, talent, youth and out-and-out raw speed. We are excited about what George and Kimi bring to the team both as individual drivers, but also as a partnership,”  team chief Toto Wolff said in a statement.
Antonelli, who is from Bologna, has had a stellar youth career until a brief lull at the start of this season.
He won the 2022, Italian and German Formula 4 championships, the 2023 Middle East and European regional Formula championships.
This season, he skipped Formula 3 and went straight into the Formula 2 championship. After a slow start he scored his first victory in the sprint race at Silverstone at the beginning of July, before winning the main race in Budapest two weeks later.
He is seventh in the championship with four rounds to go.