Wolff: ‘My instincts told me to sign Antonelli’

Mercedes announced on the weekend of the Monza race that it had signed Andrea Kimi Antonelli to replace Lewis Hamilton, who has decided to move to Ferrari at the end of the season.

Team boss Toto Wolff said Kimi was his first choice but the final decision was made at a board meeting in Stuttgart.

“I don’t have a hard time making decisions because of the way I was raised. These things come to me completely naturally. My first instinct was, ‘This is an opportunity for Kimi,'” Wolff said.

“But there was a whole season in Formula 2 and a lot of testing for Kimi, so I had to step back and say, ‘Wait a minute, it’s just a gut reaction’.”

“Afterwards I realised that the chances of reaching an agreement with Kimi were quite high, but we had to act rationally and logically.”

“There were a few key points where I had to consult with all the people I worked with at Mercedes. I had to get the opinions of Ola Kallenius and Markus Schafer in Stuttgart and discuss all these points with them before making the final decision.”

“The decision was made with Ola in mind, but we also had Gwen Lagrue, James Allison and Bradley Lord, who were running our young driver program, with us at the time.”

“They confirmed my initial gut decision.”