Toto Wolff remains open to bringing the world champion, Max Verstappen, to Mercedes even as the team announced signing Kimi Antonelli to replace Lewis Hamilton for the 2025 season.
Mercedes confirmed the 18-year-old would arrive next season alongside George Russell on Saturday yesterday morning at the Italian Grand Prix where McLaren’s Lando Norris went on to claim pole for the race. However, Wolff, the Mercedes principal, had confirmed the communication channel with Verstappen, with whom he had talks earlier in the year, remained open.
The team’s statement announcing Antonelli referred only to a contract for 2025, while Russell’s deal is up at the end of next season. Wolff confirmed he had been pursuing Verstappen before signing the Italian.
“We were discussing with other options, and the Max idea couldn’t be discounted completely looking at what happened at Red Bull,” he said.
When pressed, Wolff noted that Antonelli’s deal was for a multi-year period, but included “complicated” options. Verstappen is contracted with Red Bull until 2028, but with performance-related exit options available to him.
Wolff said the Russell-Antonelli line-up was what they wanted with a focus on this year and next, but tellingly admitted he would be honest with his drivers if he chose to “flirt” with other options, of which Verstappen is the only serious contender.
“This is a pressure cooker,” he said. “I say there’s always has been a pressure cooker, but this is where we stand as a team today, we want to go with these two.
“All of our focus in the team is on George and Kimi. There’s no discussion, there’s no second thoughts about what we’re doing in 2026 because now it’s about 2024 and 2025.
“If flirting outside happens, then these guys will know it at the same time, when we have those discussions.”
On the track, Norris lit up the temple of speed and with it potentially the world championship as he nailed his best chance yet to pile the pressure on Verstappen and take a hatful of points off the Dutchman.
Verstappen leads by 70 points with nine races remaining and for all that Norris did win the last race in Zandvoort, bridging the gap still felt an enormous ask. But Verstappen struggled again, once more lacking grip and balance, and he could manage only seventh on the grid. Norris has the opportunity in a very quick car in race pace to take a major chunk out of that lead and make an unfeasible gap something of a credible target.
“For sure it is a good opportunity,” he said. “For some reason they just didn’t take these steps forward in qualifying. He [Verstappen] was quick in Q2, but even his gap to Sergio Pérez was not as big as it normally is. We have to try and make the most of it.”
Norris produced a brilliant lap in what was an intense, competitive session, one he was not entirely satisfied with, feeling he had not nailed his run to perfection, but it was more than good enough.
With a time of 1min 19.327sec he solidly beat his teammate, Oscar Piastri, into second. Mercedes’ Russell is in third, both drivers a 10th back.
Verstappen, who opened the season with a dominant car that allowed him to open such an enormous lead, must come back from a wobble he can ill afford as McLaren put Red Bull under the cosh. In recent races, their pace has dropped away as McLaren’s has improved and this was Verstappen’s worst qualifying of the season as he bemoaned the lack of grip.
For Norris, meanwhile, once more his start will be under intense scrutiny, an achilles heel that he and the team are trying to address as they look to exploit a major advantage.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were in fourth and fifth, with Hamilton in sixth. Pérez was eighth, Alex Albon ninth for Williams and Nico Hülkenberg tenth for Haas.
Fernando Alonso was in 11th for Aston Martin, Daniel Ricciardo 12th for RB, Kevin Magnussen 13th for Haas, with Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon in 14th and 15th for Alpine.
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Franco Colapinto, the Argentine driver currently competing in F2 and drafted in only this week to replace Logan Sargeant at Williams, acquitted himself very well in his F1 debut to take 18th place.
On Sunday, he will be the first Argentine since Gastón Mazzacane in 2001 to compete in F1 and the second, after Carlos Reutemann, to race for Williams.
Yuki Tsunoda was in 16th for RB, Lance Stroll in 17th for Aston Martin, with Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou in 19th and 20th for Sauber.
