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Jacques Villeneuve feels Mercedes is going to pick Valtteri Bottas as the driver who replaces Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes for the 2024 F1 season. The German team has been in a quandary ever since the legend announced his departure early in the year.
At the time Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was caught off-guard as the decision came as a shock for almost everyone. Since then, the name Kimi Antonelli has been doing rounds. Toto Wolff is massively impressed by the young talent and has already ordained the young Italian as one of the future greats of the sport.
Having said that, Kimi Antonelli is still only 17 years old. He's skipped F3 and gone straight to F2. In all likelihood, he is looked at as a driver who is going to be the future of Mercedes, after Lewis Hamilton. Unfortunately, the timing is off because Mercedes needs Lewis Hamilton's replacement next season.
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Kimi Antonelli is still in his rookie season in Formula 2, and while he's shown a decent record against Oliver Bearman, not having a single podium till now is a glaring shortcoming. In that case, the team could look for a one-year stopgap option. According to Jacques Villeneuve, the stop-gap Lewis Hamilton replacement could be Valtteri Bottas.
Talking to Sky F1, the Canadian said that the German team needs a driver who would be fine with a single-year contract, and at this stage, Bottas might just be the one. He said,
“I guess Bottas will go to Mercedes. They want a driver for one year. So who do they take? They take a driver who will take a one-year deal, knows the team, experience, and prepares the seat for Antonelli. And then Toto will have to pay a team to put Antonelli somewhere for a year.”
Lewis Hamilton's squad Mercedes is Kimi Antonelli's team
The Canadian also talked about how more than a year at Mercedes is possibly not going to happen for the 10x race winner Valtteri Bottas because Toto Wolff wants Kimi Antonelli as the next star of the team after Lewis Hamilton's era.
Much has been said about how the Austrian missed out on securing Max Verstappen's services a decade back and how he lost a generational talent as a result. According to Jacques Villeneuve, Wolff is desperate to prove that the talent he picked as a 12-year-old will be a superstar. As a result, the entire team will be aligned for his success. He said,
“Mercedes is not really an open door. It’s Antonelli’s team. He’s the future, he’s being prepped for it, and Toto will not have it any other way. There’s ego in there, he will prove to the world that he was right that when Antonelli was 12 he knew that he was a future champion.”
It will be interesting to see who replaces Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes. The option of Valtteri Bottas is certainly an interesting one but could look like taking one step back if the team is going for a driver it already let go of, a few years back.
