25 September 2025 – 11:49<\/p>\n
Ralf Schumacher believes Kimi Antonelli may have rescued his Mercedes future in Baku, where the 19-year-old responded to criticism with a solid P4 despite teammate George Russell\u2019s podium.<\/p>\n
Before the race weekend, Toto Wolff had openly branded Antonelli\u2019s Monza performance “disappointing” and “underwhelming” – fuelling speculation Mercedes could revisit Carlos Sainz as a 2026 option.<\/p>\n
But Schumacher told Sky Deutschland the Italian rookie\u2019s Baku rebound eased those doubts. “Formula 1 is very short-lived.<\/p>\n
“Kimi Antonelli had an important weekend in Baku, where he did something for his public image. This result was also important internally for Mercedes,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Not only Kimi was under pressure, but also Toto. He decided to give Kimi the cockpit after Lewis Hamilton. If the driver he proposed to the shareholders doesn\u2019t perform, then they ask, \u2019What do we do now?\u2019 In the end, it\u2019s expensive – and you also have to look at the Constructors\u2019 Championship.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s why Baku was so important for Mercedes.”<\/p>\n
The German added: “Kimi had a solid weekend. He can build on that. So I don\u2019t think that door will open again for Carlos Sainz.”<\/p>\n
Sainz confirmed to Sky Italia that he had been in talks with Wolff last year before committing to Williams. “We talked a lot with Mercedes and everyone else at the time, and I was certainly one of the options that was considered.<\/p>\n
“But how close I was, you can ask Toto,” the Spaniard added. As for the latest speculation, however, Sainz insisted: “I have a contract with Williams and Toto hasn\u2019t called me.”<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Wolff is keeping a close eye on Max Verstappen, whose back-to-back poles and wins at Monza and Baku have slashed McLaren\u2019s title advantage.<\/p>\n
“Max has had a good run,” said the Austrian. “The car is good.<\/p>\n
“With Max Verstappen, you always have to be wary of what he can achieve, especially now that it\u2019s possible again,” Wolff warned.<\/p>\n
“Everything has to work out well for him, but you already saw in Baku that a DNF for the championship leader clears the way for Max to score 25 points. Things can change quickly.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"25 September 2025 – 11:49 Ralf Schumacher believes Kimi Antonelli may have rescued his Mercedes future in Baku,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168128,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-168127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}