Williams boss reveals messages with Toto Wolff as Kimi Antonelli swap speculation continues
Mercedes prospect Kimi Antonelli
Williams boss James Vowles said he was messaging Mercedes counterpart Toto Wolff during a “bloody impressive” Formula 2 race for Kimi Antonelli at Spa.
Mercedes prodigy Antonelli is contesting his rookie Formula 2 season with Prema and is regarded as the leading candidate to step up to a Mercedes F1 2025 seat to replace their departing seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, who is on his way to Ferrari.
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After feeling the intense weight of speculation over that Mercedes seat earlier in the year, Antonelli is starting to find his feet in F2, having claimed a maiden victory in the Silverstone sprint race, while his first feature race win came at the following round in Hungary.
Speculation has persisted that Williams could bring Antonelli in during the F1 2024 campaign ahead of a Mercedes promotion, with Logan Sargeant struggling to impress in his second and final Williams season, with Carlos Sainz signed for F1 2025 and beyond.
Vowles – who was with Mercedes since their 2010 F1 return until taking the Williams team boss role in 2023 – confirmed that Wolff is not “pushing” for Williams to put Antonelli in their car, though he teased that he will have to “reconsider my options” if Sargeant does not step it up when the pace of the FW45 allows.
Vowles confirmed that Williams has “updates coming after the summer break I hope in Zandvoort” and then in Baku/Singapore which “should add up to us being back in a position of fighting for points”.
“So Toto isn’t pushing him towards me,” said Vowles in reference to Antonelli.
“And my perspective, as I said before, is I’d much rather give Logan every opportunity to succeed and be an ongoing professional racing driver.
“Where I’m balancing and the reason why I said not an absolute yes to it is when we make this car faster, we will make it faster, I have a responsibility to finish as high up in the championship as possible. And if he delivers, brilliant. And if he doesn’t, then I need to reconsider my options.”
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Antonelli is making an impression on Vowles though, who picked out a “bloody impressive” example from Antonelli’s battle at Spa against Williams junior Franco Colapinto, with he and Wolff exchanging messages through the F2 race.
However, whether Antonelli’s F1 future will “overlap with Williams” remains to be seen.
“It was interesting. I’ll talk to you about something that’s very private, but I hope that Toto doesn’t mind,” said Vowles. “We were messaging yesterday during the F2 race and for me what Kimi did is bloody impressive.
“It was against Colapinto, our own driver here. He went up the inside and he didn’t lift and for all of you that have at least been in a racing car, you know how tough that move was. That, in the wet, is not just brave, that takes a hell of a lot of skill and he had snaps at the top of Eau Rouge. That’s impressive.
“He’s a good kid. But he’s 17. And answering your question, I’ll be proud of whatever he achieves because I was part of his journey all the way up until the last few years, but I’m not sure that’s going to overlap with Williams.”
Williams sit P9 in the current F1 2024 Constructors’ Championship standings with four points on the board.
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