Kimi Antonelli to test Mercedes F1 car again after Belgian GP

Andrea Kimi Antonelli will take part in his latest F1 test for Mercedes following the Belgian Grand Prix, Crash.net has learned.

The 17-year-old Italian and Mercedes junior will drive the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit next week when he gets behind the wheel of the team’s 2022 W13 car.

It will mark the highly-rated Mercedes’ prodigy’s latest outing in an F1 car as part of their TPC programme. Antonelli has also taken part in tests at the Red Bull Ring, Silverstone and Imola in recent months.

“It's difficult to find opportunities to run a TPC programme because the F1 race calendar is so busy. We haven't got a whole separate team of people that can do that,” Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin told select media including Crash.net in Belgium.

“That's one of the realities of the cost cap is that you haven't got the test team that you used to have in years gone by and Kimi is pretty busy with his F2 calendar, which, when you're in Europe, is quite a focus.

“We've got more events planned. We're doing a day with him here in Spa after the weekend. And then we've got other events further into the year, but it's all going well, and the programmes now will drift towards teaching him how you need to refine the approach to qualifying, how you refine the approach to long runs and just trying to get all of that work so he can have a clearer idea of what it is he needs to work on and improve.

“But, it's all going well. And plenty more events are planned.”

Mercedes are weighing up whether to promote Antonelli to a full-time F1 seat as Ferrari-bound Lewis Hamilton’s replacement next season.

After a difficult start to his rookie Formula 2 season with Prema, Antonelli has claimed breakthrough sprint and feature race victories at the last two rounds at Silverstone and Budapest.

Antonelli currently sits sixth in the F2 standings, 55 points behind championship leader Isack Hadjar.

“I don’t know if I would be ready, to be honest, because I still am learning a lot in F2,” he admitted after his maiden feature race win in Hungary.

“Definitely I still do quite a few mistakes, a few details that really matter, and I’m still not doing them right.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I’m trying to improve and to not make the same mistakes again, and I think [winning the Feature Race in Hungary] was the proof."