When Mercedes boss Toto Wolff announced that a boy would replace seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton, there were questions. But, in his second season in F1, already with a number of relevant brands, young Kimi Antonelli leads the championship and surprises with his displays of maturity.
“On all issues, he has dealt with cold blood. He can separate situations well and talk about what lies ahead, not what is behind, with a lot of confidence, but not overconfidence,” said Wolff. “For a racing driver, in addition to the ability to drive a fast car, mental resilience is key. And that’s what Kimi is showing.”
Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who will only turn 20 in August, won three of the four races of the season – the most recent on Sunday (3), at the Miami GP. Never before has someone so young led the championship, and with Mercedes apparently well adapted to the new regulations, the possibility of him fighting for the title seems very realistic.
“It’s just the beginning,” said Antonelli, in a demonstration of his confidence without excess. It is the beginning of a long dispute, comprising 22 stages – two, in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, were canceled due to conflicts in the Middle East. It could also be the beginning of a great career.
Son of driver Marco Antonelli, who has experience in several motorsport categories and now owns a team in Italy, Kimi started karting at the age of seven and went on to accumulate titles. In a journey in which he skipped stages, he reached F1 without having been through F3.
A member of the Mercedes academy since 2019, he was announced as a replacement for a seven-time world champion when he did not yet have a driver’s license. It was only two months before the start of the 2025 calendar that he obtained his license to drive passenger cars in his country.
The debut season in F1 had great moments and important milestones. He scored points in the first three races of his career – something that hadn’t happened since 1965 –, had the best score for a rookie in the current system and became the third youngest on an F1 podium.
He also faced difficulties. The promising start was followed by a period of poor results. After a series of mistakes made in the Spa-Francorchamps stage, in Belgium, an upset teenager was moved to tears.
“I cry. During that difficult period, I cried a lot. I suffered a lot, I started to doubt myself. You arrive in F1, it’s the dream of your life, something you’ve worked so hard for, and, after a great start, you start to not perform well. I lacked the composure and lucidity that more experienced drivers have”, he observed, at the end of the season.
Honesty regarding the topic was treated in the industry as an early sign of maturity. And Antonelli presented himself for the 2026 race with the coolness that impressed Wolff, with results that the other Mercedes driver, George Russell, has not shown. After a victory in the first grand prix in Melbourne, the 28-year-old Briton was second in Shanghai and fourth in Suzuka and Miami.
Antonelli leads the championship, with 100 points, followed by Russell, with 80. Monegasque Charles Leclerc (63), from Ferrari, and the British Lando Norris (51), from McLaren, and Lewis Hamilton (49), from Ferrari, complete the list of the top five.
Kimi’s good start has generated excitement in Italy, a traditional F1 country that has not had a champion since Alberto Ascari’s two in 1952 and 1953. No Italian had won a race in the main motorsport category since Giancarlo Fisichella’s triumph in Malaysia in 2006.
“For me, it’s not a surprise,” said Dutchman Max Verstappen, four-times champion, last year. “I saw Kimi coming up from the karting, I was keeping an eye on him. He is naturally fast and is a calm guy, who knows how to deal with things calmly. In the coming years, we will definitely see a lot of Kimi.”
There wasn’t even a long wait necessary. The boy from Bologna has already made it clear that Toto Wolff’s bold bet was not absurd and demonstrated a personality capable of attracting numerous fans.
In his first race in Brazil, he went to the Morumbi cemetery, in São Paulo, to see Ayrton Senna’s tomb. Kimi was born 12 years after the death of the Brazilian idol – also in a hospital in Bologna – and says she fell in love with him through videos.
After visiting the grave, he obtained second place in the São Paulo GP, his best result in 2025. And he donated the helmet used at the Interlagos race track to the Senna family collection.
“Ayrton is my hero in motorsport.”
