Antonelli in F1 from 2025
The stakes were very high, but this time Toto Wolff he didn’t want to think about it too much: he risked a lot just to avoid making the same mistake a second time. Who knows how many times in these weeks his mind will have gone back to 2014, when he was about to hire a kid called Max Verstappen and in the end he had to back out because he couldn’t promise him (unlike Helmut Marko and Red Bull) a debut in Formula 1 the following season. A regret that he himself confessed he hasn’t completely overcome, in an interview given to Fox Sports at this year’s Australian GP.
And who knows how much that regret played a decisive role in the choice of Lewis Hamilton’s successor. A choice that, after months of rumours, indiscretions and more or less secret negotiations, finally fell on Andrea Kimi Antonelli. It will therefore be neither an established champion nor an expert craftsman capable of guaranteeing points and solidity, but an Italian boy just eighteen years old who will officially debut in Mercedes in 2025 alongside George Russell.
Who is Kimi Antonelli?
Regardless of Wolff’s past traumas, Today the comparison with Verstappen seems risky or at the very least premature. Just as it is now banal to play on how the name Kimi – suggested by a family friend without the explicit intention of a tribute to the former Ferrari driver Raikkonen – is a warning from destiny about the boy’s winning future. Nonetheless, the reasons why Mercedes has decided to bet so heavily on the talent from Bologna, rather than risk being beaten to the punch by some rival team, are very solid. And they start from the results, the performances, the nastiness and the maturity that Antonelli has shown on the track. Ever since Wolff signed him to a ten-year contract until 2028 in 2019, when he was just 12 years old.
Kart phenomenon
Son of Marco Antonelli, a good driver in GT and superturismo before becoming team principal of the Antonelli Motorsport team, Kimi started with Dino Chiesa of Kart Republic, the same one with whom Hamilton and Rosberg took their first steps in racing. He grew up with triumphs, so much so that since he was a child he was considered one of the future crack of world motoring: in 2018 he won the WSK Champions Cup 60 Mini title, then becoming WSK Euro Series champion in the OK Junior class the following season. The turning point was inexorable: he was recommended to Mercedes talent scouts by Giancarlo Minardi and his son Giovanni, then he won the European WSK in the OK category in 2020 and the CIK-Fia championship in 2021. And after having won the impossible on karts, his debut in single-seaters was no less…
Start in single-seater
In 2022, in his first full year among the “big boys”, he dominated with style in Formula 4: he raced in the Italian series, winning the title thanks to 13 pole positions and 14 victories in 20 races, but he also triumphed in the German edition, scoring 9 victories in 15 events. That is, running three races less than all his opponents. A habit on the top step of the podium that Kimi also maintained in 2023 in Formula Regional, where he also shows off a certain tactical intelligencein addition to the usual very heavy right foot. He shows himself capable of settling for the podium or good points finishes, and in the end the title arrives also thanks to his consistent performance and few missteps (only two races out of 20 without points).
But the real masterpiece of grit and talent is under the rain of Zandvoorton the decisive day for the championship victory. It is there that Antonelli, dancing in the wet, climbs from eighth to first position in just three laps, taking all his opponents to school and thus convincing Wolff to burn the stages for the jump to Formula 2 without passing through the intermediate step of F3.
The 2024 Formula 2 season
It is often said that the greatest champions are those capable of making the difference in the wet, and Senna, Schumacher, Hamilton and Verstappen are no exception. It must therefore have been no coincidence that Antonelli’s first victory among the cadets came in the rainat Silverstone: taking advantage of the grid inversion of the Sprint Race, but also authoritatively managing several restarts after the Safety Car. Two weeks later came the first real victory, in the “long race” in Budapest.
In truth, it should not be hidden that 2024 was more complicated than expected. Partly due to the unexpected difficulties of the Prema team with the new generation car, partly because in such a balanced championship, in the end the less inexperienced drivers emerged with more determination. It will also be the first year in single-seaters in which Antonelli will probably not win the titlethus moving away from the trajectory of debut victories in the cadets that marked the path to F1 for Hulkenberg, Rosberg and Hamilton, and more recently also for Leclerc, Russell and Piastri.
The road to F1
Thanks to Wolff, missing the appointment with the F2 victory will not be a big problem. While he was trying to convince Verstappen to leave the powder keg Red Bull to marry the Mercedes project, The Austrian manager has pushed the accelerator for Kimi’s growth. This is how, since last spring, the starlet from Bologna has been able to drive a 2021 W12 at the Red Bull Ring, repeating on several other occasions with the 2022 W13, that is, with a car that complies with the current ground effect regulations.
From day one he impressed the engineers who followed and supported him in the tests leading up to F1. Then the 18th birthday party, the official debut in a free practice session 1 in front of his home crowd, in Monza, the failure of the negotiations to have Super Max and then the Mercedes announcement for 2025. He will be the first Italian in F1 since Antonio Giovinazzi (2021), but especially the first in a top car since Giancarlo Fisichella at Renault (2005-2006). The rest is a beautiful book yet to be written…
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