{"id":136465,"date":"2025-09-12T00:41:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/136465\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T00:41:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T00:41:10","slug":"guenther-steiner-tells-mercedes-to-swap-kimi-antonelli-with-27-podium-driver-for-the-2026-f1-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/136465\/","title":{"rendered":"Guenther Steiner tells Mercedes to swap Kimi Antonelli with 27-podium driver for the 2026 F1 season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has told Mercedes to consider trying to swap Andrea Kimi Antonelli with one of his rivals on the grid for the 2026 Formula 1 season.<\/p>\n

Kimi Antonelli<\/a> has found himself under pressure at Mercedes<\/a> over the past few months after a very promising start to his rookie Formula 1<\/a> campaign.<\/p>\n

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff<\/a> described Antonelli\u2019s performance at the Italian Grand Prix<\/a> as \u2018underwhelming\u2019 following a mistake in FP2 and a five-second time penalty for running Williams<\/a> driver Alex Albon<\/a> off the road.<\/p>\n

Antonelli now finds himself behind Albon in the drivers\u2019 championship<\/a> and 128 points behind Mercedes teammate George Russell<\/a>.<\/p>\n

CategoryGeorge RussellAndrea Kimi Antonelli2025 points19466Grand Prix results160Grand Prix qualifying151Grand Prix wins10Grand Prix poles10Grand Prix podiums61Best finish1st3rdDisqualifications00Retirements04Retirements (classified finish)00Fastest laps22Grand Prix points finishes158Sprint results30Sprint Qualifying21Sprint wins00Sprint poles01Sprint podiums00The 2025 F1 teammate head-to-head battle of George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli<\/p>\n

Wolff tried to lower expectations on Antonelli<\/a> before the start of his rookie campaign, knowing how much pressure would be on him replacing seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton.<\/p>\n

There have been glimpses of his brilliance; taking a Sprint Race pole position in Miami, finishing on the podium in Canada and surviving the ridiculous conditions at the season opener in Melbourne to finish fourth.<\/p>\n

However, Guenther Steiner<\/a> believes that Antonelli might need to be taken out of the spotlight next season, and has suggested Mercedes try to engineer a swap deal with Williams for Carlos Sainz<\/a> ahead of 2026.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Who is Mercedes F1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli? Age, nationality, stats and more<\/a><\/p>\n

\"MercedesPhoto by Federico Manoni\/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesGuenther Steiner tells Mercedes to try and swap Kimi Antonelli and Carlos Sainz ahead of next season<\/p>\n

Steiner was asked during the Gas or Break feature on The Red Flags Podcast whether Antonelli and Albon should swap seats going into the 2026 F1 season.<\/p>\n

He replied: \u201cGas,\u201d implying that the move should happen. \u201cKimi and Albon, or Kimi and Sainz, we should say.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be better for Kimi, I think, it would give him time to calm down.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook what happened with Liam Lawson when the pressure is gone. He can have good results, you develop, and then you come back as a better driver.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should try [to do the swap], but I don\u2019t think that James Vowles is up for that.<\/p>\n

\"GuentherPhoto by Gold & Goose Photography\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s a good idea, gas. It\u2019s better for Kimi. No disrespect, the kid is 19 years old. We can see it\u2019s too early for him, [he] makes too many mistakes, even Toto said that.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing Toto, when he starts to talk about [something], there is always something behind [it].<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe he\u2019s thinking about that, saying he\u2019s making too many mistakes. Maybe, in one or two races, it is better we send him to Williams to learn, but maybe there is something.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steiner was then asked which Williams driver he would choose to put into the Mercedes seat for next year if he were in Vowles\u2019 position, and continued: \u201cI will give up Carlos.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, because Albon has been there longer, he knows everything. At the moment, he\u2019s getting better results. I would give up Carlos.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Best moments of Carlos Sainz\u2019s F1 career including first pole, podium, win, title and more<\/a><\/p>\n

Carlos Sainz is facing his own struggles at Williams after his Ferrari move<\/p>\n

Williams faced plenty of competition to sign Sainz when it became clear that he was losing his seat at Ferrari to Hamilton.<\/p>\n

The Spaniard, who has 27 F1 podiums to his name, hasn\u2019t hit the ground running like many would have expected at Williams this year.<\/p>\n

\"MercedesPhoto by Clive Rose\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Albon has outscored Sainz by 54 points, and the 31-year-old will be desperate to climb above 18th in the drivers\u2019 championship before the end of the campaign, which would represent his worst-ever season in Formula 1.<\/p>\n

Sainz put Williams ahead of himself<\/a> when he first joined the team, trying to download all of the knowledge he had gained at Ferrari and turn it into something constructive at Williams.<\/p>\n

Position Drivers’ Championship PointsPts 1 324 2 293 3 230 4 194 5 163 6 117 7 70 8 66 9 38 10 37 11 32 12 30 13 28 14 20 15 20 16 18 17 16 18 16 19 12 20 0 <\/p>\n

The time has come for him to put himself first, and while Sainz was linked with Mercedes<\/a> last year before Antonelli\u2019s promotion was confirmed, a move seems incredibly unlikely right now.<\/p>\n

Williams\u2019 car is far from perfect, but small mistakes, such as the clashes with Liam Lawson and Oliver Bearman in recent races, have prevented him from picking up points.<\/p>\n

If Sainz can remove those going forward, then he should start to make a dent in Albon\u2019s impressive lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has told Mercedes to consider trying to swap Andrea Kimi Antonelli with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[12295,64,63,4971,817,813,1627,816,3552,945,85,1803],"class_list":{"0":"post-136465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-carlos-sainz","12":"tag-f1","13":"tag-formula-1","14":"tag-formula-1-driver-market","15":"tag-formula1","16":"tag-guenther-steiner","17":"tag-mercedes","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-williams-racing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}