F1 back and forth discussion: Andrew Benson responds to your inquiries after Bahrain GP

The 2024 Formula 1 season began in Bahrain at the end of the week with a ruling success for Red Bull's Maximum Verstappen - and we need to understand what the big talking points lofty ideas were.

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Who are the main contender to take the Mercedes situate emptied by Lewis Hamilton in 2025?

Andrew: Mercedes group head Toto Wolff has previously conceded that he arranged a more limited agreement than Lewis Hamilton needed the previous summer since he would have rather not gambled losing the rising Italian star Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who has been on the Mercedes junior driver program for quite a long time.

Antonelli is only 17, and is appearing in Recipe 2 this season. His most memorable race in Bahrain last end of the week went poorly on the grounds that his Prema group battled at the track, yet he is very profoundly evaluated, with numerous insiders viewing him as the "following Verstappen".

On the off chance that Wolff considers Antonelli not prepared for graduation next season, the undeniable driving competitor as a band-aid for a little while is Fernando Alonso, despite his troublesome history with Mercedes, tracing all the way back to the 2007 'spy-gate' discussion.

From that point forward, second-level up-and-comers would be any semblance of Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon.

Obviously, assuming the discussion over Christian Horner wound up importance Max Verstappen was accessible, then that would change things decisively. Each group would need him - including Mercedes, obviously.