Lawson and Schumacher Lead Race to Replace Sargeant

Aug.26 - Andrea Kimi Antonelli is not a contender to replace Logan Sargeant at Williams.

It is clear that Liam Lawson and Mick Schumacher are in the running to step into Sargeant's cockpit from Monza, having exhausted the patience of team boss James Vowles.

Toto Wolff's newly-18-year-old protege Antonelli was also rumoured to be a contender, to give him precious experience before his expected full debut for Mercedes in 2025.

Team boss Wolff, however, says no.

"We will continue with our program, do the testing with Kimi, prepare him, and he will finish his Formula 2 season," the Mercedes chief told Sky Deutschland on Sunday.

Indeed, Wolff has now confirmed reports that the boy-faced Italian will make his official F1 race weekend debut this Friday at Monza, in FP1.

"It's a great emotion for us," the Austrian said. "We started working with Kimi when he was 11 years old, and in Monza he will come out of the pitlane in a Mercedes.

"We want to hear all the grandstands make a lot of noise for him," Wolff added.

It will be at least bittersweet for Wolff, however, given that Mercedes' recent race-winning form disappeared at Zandvoort.

"First of all, I'm happy about Monza in that we'll be using Kimi in the first free practice session," he said. "But we have to look at everything now and make some changes to the car. Maybe go back a bit to what we had in Spa.

"The car we have is sometimes a box of surprises," Wolff added. "It's not the same car that was fighting for first and second place six weeks ago.

"Perhaps it was the setup, the track or the floor. Or even all of them put together."

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