Collectors & Aficionados
The Art of Crafting Racing Champions with Vision: From Schumacher to Antonelli
Long before modern academies, Mercedes created a junior team that shaped Schumacher-proving champions can be built, not discovered.
Today, the results of the major teams’ junior programmes are plain for all to see: Charles Leclerc from the Ferrari Driver Academy, Max Verstreappen from the Red Bull system, Kimi Antonelli from the Mercedes-Benz junior programme. Drivers identified early, carefully developed and guided step by step by official structures designed to shape the champions of tomorrow.
Yet the idea of a modern junior teams did not originate in the new millennium. In fact, Mercedes had already embarked on this path more than thirty years ago. At the end of the 1980s, when Formula 1 still lacked structured academies, the Stuttgart-based manufacturer launched an ambitious project in the Group C World Sportscar Championship, in partnership with Sauber. From 1989, sporting responsibility for the programme – with Le Mans as its ultimate goal – was entrusted to Jochen Neerpasch, a highly experienced executive and founder of BMW M Motorsport in the 1970s. Mercedes’ mandate was clear: to return the Three-Pointed Star to the summit of international competition.
