Lewis Hamilton is confident that his Mercedes replacement, Kimi Antonelli, will come up with the goods next year. The Silver Arrows have confirmed their new driver line-up, with teenage superstar Antonelli set to race alongside George Russell in 2025.

Hamilton shook up the F1 landscape in February by agreeing a multi-year contract with Ferrari, which will kick in once he has seen out his final season at Mercedes. The months since have seen team principal Toto Wolff scour the market for a replacement.

With Wolff's public pursuit of reigning triple world champion Max Verstappen failing to bear fruit, and other candidates committing their futures to other teams, Mercedes turned towards their highly-rated junior driver, Antonelli.

The 18-year-old's star has risen rapidly in motorsport but there had been concerns around whether he is ready for the challenge. Hamilton, though, feels he is a worthy replacement.

"Congrats Kimi Antonelli," the seven-time world champion wrote on his Instagram story. "I have no doubt that you'll bring a lot to the team alongside George next year (clapping emoji)."

Antonelli crashed out at Monza on Friday during his first competitive F1 run-out. The youngster was only five laps into the practice session when he pushed too hard into Parabolica and did extensive damage to Russell's car.

Despite Mercedes' best efforts, the W15 was not fixed and ready for Russell until 25 minutes into the second session. Wolff sympathised with Antonelli while warning him that there will be plenty more high-pressure moments to come.

"Clearly here, with everything piling up on him in Monza, that is very difficult to cope with," he said. "Is that the reason why he put it in the wall? Maybe. For him, it feels certainly terrible, but it is part of the development curve.

"A strong driver needs to recover from these things, cope with the pressure, but obviously this weekend wasn't easy for him - you still need to compete in F2, you have all these shenanigans around you in Monza, an Italian kid that is being hyped, first time in a Mercedes car.

"That must be a heavy burden but if he wants to be a champion one day he needs to cope with that, and I’ve no doubt that he can and he will."

Ferrari-bound Hamilton, who has won two Grands Prix this season, set the pace in Friday practice as he pipped McLaren's Lando Norris by three thousandths of a second.