Mercedes may have changed their mind on their 2025 driver line-up after Silverstone

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Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is pondering the future driver line-up of his Formula 1 team after unexpected back-to-back victories.

George Russell and Lewis Hamilton have both ended their long waits for F1 wins in Austria and Great Britain respectively.

Mercedes still sit fourth in the Constructors’ Championship with a lot of ground to make up to McLaren, Ferrari and the current leaders Red Bull.

However, the team are suddenly in a much stronger position than they were just a few races ago thanks to a couple of updates that suggest they finally understand what was going wrong with their car.

Having said that, one rival team boss believes Mercedes were always going to be strong at Silverstone due to the nature of the track so they may not be getting carried away just yet.

Hamilton is departing for Ferrari at the end of the campaign and as the summer break approaches, Mercedes still haven’t decided who’s going to replace him.

Journalist Craig Slater was speaking on the Sky Sports F1 YouTube channel and provided an update on the current thinking within the team.

He believes that there may have been a change of plans recently on who’s going to be George Russell’s next teammate.

And that could be a blow to 17-year-old Formula 2 star Andrea Kimi Antonelli despite coming off the back of his best weekend of the season so far.

READ MORE: Who is Mercedes academy driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli? Everything you need to know

Mercedes having second thoughts about promoting Kimi Antonelli in 2025

Silverstone is one of the fastest tracks on the calendar and while that presents drivers with a challenge in itself, it’s also notorious for changeable weather conditions.

Every race throughout the weekend saw drivers having to make tough calls on what tyres to use and when to pit.

Charles Leclerc’s horrific race on Sunday epitomised what could go wrong when a bad decision was made.

However, after starting on pole position in the Sprint Race, Antonelli thrived and opened up an impressive gap at the front of the race despite having to deal with several safety car restarts.

Unfortunately, he was taken out in the Feature Race and speaking about his future after the weekend, Slater said: “The other question about Kimi Antonelli [is], is he going to succeed Lewis Hamilton?

“I think Mercedes want to take their time with him now. He had a better weekend, won the Sprint Race in F2 at Silverstone but maybe they think they want to wait on that.”

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Mercedes AMG F1 Team from team principal to lineage

Who could Mercedes turn to if they don’t promote Kimi Antonelli?

While it’s not completely out of the question that Antonelli still earns a promotion to Mercedes for next year, it might be more likely that he ends up on the grid elsewhere.

Antonelli has been linked with Williams in the past and they appear to be no closer to signing a teammate for Alex Albon.

Williams were linked with Carlos Sainz but that seems less and less likely with team principal James Vowles beginning to lose patience with the time he’s taking to decide where he wants to drive next year.

Sainz may be delaying his decision because he now senses an opportunity to replace Hamilton at Mercedes.

Toto Wolff has said that Sainz is definitely still in the conversation to join the team next year.

He’s the strongest free agent on the market and needs to make sure he’s at the strongest team possible in 2025 even if it’s not a long-term solution.