Former Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner has suggested Toto Wolff is taking \u201crevenge\u201d by fielding Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes.<\/p>\n
Antonelli was promoted to the Silver Arrows in 2025 and endured a mixed debut campaign in F1. However, a more positive start to this year has seen him secure two grand prix wins in the opening three rounds.<\/p>\n
The Italian currently leads the drivers’ championship and has been praised for his strong performances at such an early stage of his career.<\/p>\n
As the title battle appears set to play out between team-mates Antonelli and George Russell, Steiner has backed Wolff to maintain equality in the fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t think he has to do a lot of management with George,\u201d Steiner told the Drive to Wynn podcast.<\/p>\n
\u201cGeorge stands on his own two feet. I think Toto is treating them equally.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s very fair with them, because George came up through the Mercedes ranks, Kimi came up through the Mercedes ranks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mercedes signed Antonelli several years ago during his karting career as it sought to develop its own future star.<\/p>\n
Several years earlier, the team had attempted to sign Max Verstappen, but the now four-time champion opted to join Red Bull\u2019s academy after being guaranteed an F1 seat in 2015.<\/p>\n
Steiner has suggested that Wolff\u2019s decision to run Antonelli at Mercedes so early in his career stems from a desire for \u201crevenge\u201d after missing out on Verstappen.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith Kimi, Toto still thinks back when he didn’t get Verstappen at the time and this is now a little bit of revenge for him, ‘I got the next superstar’,\u201d Steiner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cToto is above that, to favour one or the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor him, the most important thing is that the team wins. That’s what Toto wants. Toto is there for Mercedes and Toto.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Haas F1 team principal Guenther Steiner has suggested Toto Wolff is taking \u201crevenge\u201d by fielding Kimi Antonelli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,2476,578,2479,2477,2480,2478,930,576,577,932,1885,2475,582,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-616447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-daniel-ricciardo","11":"tag-f1","12":"tag-f1-calendar","13":"tag-f1-live","14":"tag-f1-results","15":"tag-f1-standings","16":"tag-ferrari","17":"tag-formula-1","18":"tag-formula1","19":"tag-lewis-hamilton","20":"tag-max-verstappen","21":"tag-motorsport","22":"tag-racing","23":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616447","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=616447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}