Kimi Antonelli prepares for a home race at the Italian GP. The 20-year-old Mercedes driver travels to Monza as the World Championship leader. A momentous fact for the home fans: the last time an Italian driver led the F1 championship before the Italian Grand Prix was in 1953. At that time, Alberto Ascari dominated the fledgling top class. Toto Wolff explains that even he was surprised by Antonelli’s rapid rise.
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Wolff has been at the helm of Mercedes’ F1 team since 2013 and led the Silberpfeile to unprecedented success. The German team won the constructors’ championship eight times in a row, while F1 veteran Lewis Hamilton secured multiple driver titles for the team. Nevertheless, the Austrian admits he is amazed at how Antonelli has taken the sport by storm.
‘Hamilton and Verstappen foresaw this’
When he debuted in Formula 1 a year ago, the Italian occasionally showed impressive pace. However, he was far from flawless, especially during the European season. When Antonelli prepared for his first race weekend in Monza, he had scored points only twice in the previous nine Grands Prix. A year later, he leads the F1 championship by a wide margin and, barring technical issues, consistently finished on the podium. Moreover, he already has six wins to his name.
“The great drivers probably saw this coming,” Wolff said during a closed media session at Zandvoort. “They recognize greatness. Drivers like Lewis (Hamilton, ed.) and Max (Verstappen, ed.) already said last year how much potential Antonelli had. As a team, we saw that too, based on his previous performances in karts and junior categories. Still, the fact that he has performed so well in almost every race after the winter is one of the biggest surprises I have ever experienced in my career.”
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Antonelli’s greatest strength
According to Wolff, Antonelli’s greatest strength lies in how he processes experiences. “He needed the winter period to think about what went well and what didn’t,” the team principal noted. “After that, he also found himself in an environment he already knew. He knew what the flight to Melbourne looked like, he knew the hotel, and he knew the setup. Once on the circuit, nothing had changed either. Then it simply comes down to how you prepare and how you drive. He no longer faced surprises.”
The fact that Antonelli still had to grow into his role as an F1 driver last year surprised no one at Mercedes. “We predicted that exactly,” Wolff admitted with a grin. “As an 18-year-old, he was basically dropped into Formula 1 and faced a flood of media requests and immense pressure. That was very demanding. Everyone said we had let him debut too early, but I felt we needed such a year.” Meanwhile, the pressure seems off, and Antonelli moves comfortably within the team. “He is authentic, very open-minded, and not political at all,” Wolff beamed. “He has not a trace of negativity. For him, it’s all about performance on the track.”
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