Antonelli's big break and Williams's drastic action

Two huge F1 debuts are coming up at the Italian Grand Prix this weekend - with Mercedes protege Kimi Antonelli getting his hands on the team's 2024 car and Franco Colapinto making his race debut following a huge shake-up at Williams.


The Race F1 Podcast turns first to Antonelli, with Edd Straw joined by Ben Anderson and Scott Mitchell-Malm to discuss how significant an outing this could be for a driver who seems destined for a 2025 Mercedes F1 graduation - and the potential headache Mercedes has on its hands for 2026 if Toto Wolff picks his interest in signing Max Verstappen back up again next year.


But it's Williams that has made a huge decision between the Dutch and Italian GPs as it finally lost patience with Logan Sargeant - axing him from its line-up and giving its academy driver Colapinto a shot alongside Alex Albon for the final nine races of the season.


That wildcard choice and how impressive Colapinto was on his F1 weekend debut in FP1 at Silverstone earlier this year, the timing of the decision and what that says about how much Williams wanted things to work out with Sargeant, and how his situation ultimately became untenable are all covered.


Ferrari's prospects heading to its home race at Monza, McLaren's constructors' championship favourite status, and whether racing will be better in 2026 despite predicted slower laptimes are among a bonus set of questions from The Race Members' Club that are tackled too.



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