Why comparisons between Antonelli and Verstappen go beyond their driving talent

A two-minute video clip recorded during one of the Prema Formula 2 team debriefs provides a fascinating insight into the world of Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The Italian’s engineer, Pedro Matos, makes fun of his driver’s incredible ability to remember lap times.

“Fastest lap, Silverstone, race one,” he says. “2:01.2,” Kimi replies. Matos chokes with laughter as he checks his screen. The FIA’s official timing sheet on his monitor confirms: 2m01.267s.

“Right, yeah, this one is easy,” chuckles Antonelli’s team-mate, Oliver Bearman. “Remember when we did the race in Monza in F4?” he adds, offering a real challenge from an event they both took part in back in 2021. “What was your lap time in quali?” 

“You wanna know?” giggles Kimi. “Was
that 52.9?”

“Let’s check somehow.” Bearman turns
to Matos. Moments later, the answer is found. And, yes, it’s 1m52.9s.

For most of the first half of this year, it was only these rare glimpses that gave the public a real sense of who this Italian teenager – upon whom Mercedes is pinning such big hope – is. The protective shell created by Toto Wolff’s communications department was intended to shield the 17-year-old from the intense media interest which followed the announcement that Lewis Hamilton would be joining Ferrari in 2025. It didn’t take long for the opinionati to include Antonelli in a shortlist of potential replacements – then elevate him to the top of that list.

Results have at last started to click into place for Antonelli after a tough start to his rookie F2 season

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Not wanting to put any more pressure on the youngster who has won every championship since moving to cars, Mercedes has decided it’s too early for him to be pecked at by the fourth estate. Early struggles in F2, where Antonelli was placed after Formula Regional, bypassing F3, meant he didn’t feature in any official press conferences until he claimed his first win, at Silverstone.

And it was only after Antonelli added another victory to his tally, in Hungary, that he sat down with our Motorsport.com colleague Roberto Chinchero for his first exclusive interview since he was thrust into the F1 spotlight at the start of the year. All other requests – not only for interviews with Antonelli himself, but also with Mercedes executives, including Wolff’s driver scout Gwen Lagrue, the architect of Kimi’s career – have been politely but firmly declined.

“Of course it wasn’t my first interview with Kimi,” says Roberto, who has known Antonelli since his karting days. “But it just confirmed the feeling I had a long time ago.

"In difficult moments I ask [Toto Wolff] for advice, I won’t deny that and he always finds a way to give me confidence"
Andrea Kimi Antonelli

“The moment Kimi really impressed me for the first time wasn’t at the track. It was at an end-of-season awards ceremony in Italy a few years ago. We were sitting at the same table and when we were talking I was just struck by a couple of
things he said. ‘There is no way this guy is 14,’
I remember thinking.

“He was so analytical, he paid so much attention when he listened to you, the way he responded – it was as if he were 10 years older than he was. And I think when you read the interview, you can feel it too.”

The first F1 test

“I was at Mercedes headquarters in Brackley,” Antonelli told Chinchero of how he found out there was a special F1 test programme designed for him by Mercedes, “but I may not have fully realised it at the time. Then, during pre-season testing in Bahrain, they told me the dates and
I said to myself: ‘Well, you’re really going to drive an F1 car!’

“It was a very, very special moment because there was a day and a track written in black on white paper. Now I can say that these tests really help me a lot and give me the opportunity to grow and get familiar with F1.”

Building mileage aboard older Mercedes machinery has been an important part of Antonelli's preparations

Photo by: Mercedes

It would be a stretch to describe the programme Mercedes offered Antonelli this year as ‘unprecedented’. But certainly in recent years, given F1’s de facto ban on testing with current cars, only Lance Stroll and Nikita Mazepin appear to have had such extensive programmes – and it wasn’t the car manufacturers who funded them, but their fathers. Antonelli’s programme began with a private test at the wheel of the 2022 Mercedes car in Austria in April, and then continued at other circuits, including Barcelona, Silverstone, Imola...

“After Lewis’s shock announcement, I wasn’t sure who Mercedes was going to take for next year,” says Chinchero. “I’ve been following the driver market almost daily this year and was surprised to see Mercedes wasn’t really entering into serious negotiations with drivers. And when I heard in Bahrain that Mercedes was planning a big F1 test programme for Kimi, I thought, ‘Oh my God, they are thinking about him for next year’.

“You have to remember it is a huge cost. I don’t think you spend that kind of money and organise that kind of programme if you want to send your driver to Williams for a couple of years.

“Of course, nobody would confirm that. Toto always said to me, ‘No, it’s too early’ – but in my mind, if I’m the CEO, I only spend that money because I’m thinking big. I think Toto has had this idea since March or even February to put Kimi in Mercedes next year – not crazy, but a very brave idea.”

In Wolff’s fold

“In difficult moments I ask him for advice, I won’t deny that,” said Antonelli when asked about his personal relationship with Wolff, “and he always finds a way to give me confidence. I’ll give you an example: at Silverstone, after the disappointing qualifying in F2, I called him because it was a bit tough.

“We talked a lot and that conversation gave me back my confidence and the next day I won.
It was really nice to see him under the podium. I’m very happy with the relationship we have.”

It’s no secret Antonelli is almost a personal project of Wolff’s, and that their relationship
goes further than that between the boss and
an ordinary young prospect. It is Kimi, after
all, who is helping Toto’s son Jack take his
first steps in karting.

“I remember when Kimi was just starting out in single-seaters, I was very surprised to see how much attention Toto devoted to him,” says Chinchero. “He was really involved in Kimi’s development process, I don’t want to say daily, but close to it – and I don’t think Fred Vasseur, for example, follows [Ferrari juniors Rafael] Camara or [Dino] Beganovic or Bearman like that.

Maiden F2 victory at Silverstone for Antonelli came after a post-qualifying pep talk with Wolff

Photo by: Prema Powerteam

“That was really interesting because Toto isn’t new to this business. He’s a man with a lot of experience in motorsport, having managed drivers before Mercedes and even before his time at Williams. When you see how invested he is in Kimi, you understand that he thinks very highly of him.”

It’s often said that Wolff’s desire to bring Antonelli into F1 as early as 2025 is driven by the pain of an old wound sustained in the decade-old battle against Red Bull for Max Verstappen. Kimi and Max are similar in many ways. Both ‘grew up in motorsport’, since Kimi’s father Marco, although not a former driver, is a team owner.

“I saw a picture of a three- or four-year-old Kimi in the paddock,” says Roberto. “He knows the motorsport world, and this is a big advantage because you don’t need to learn a lot of things when you grew up in this environment.

"When you go through difficult times, I think you come out stronger in the end. I had a difficult period, but it was also nice to come back stronger"
Kimi Andrea Antonelli

“He often goes with his dad to races even if he doesn’t race himself – and not because he’s forced to do it. On the contrary, they even ask him to stay at home, but: ‘No, no, I want to go.’ And he’d be there with mechanics, with other drivers. It’s his world.

“He is a little bit like Max. He has his friends, he goes to the US with friends for a holiday and knows how to switch off from racing – so he probably doesn’t think about it 24 hours a day... But in terms of how focused he is on his goal he
is a bit like Max, yes.”

A race many describe as one of Antonelli’s most impressive so far has a lot of similarities with Verstappen’s star turn in Brazil in 2016, when he made it to the podium after dropping to 16th a handful of laps before the finish. Kimi’s victory at Zandvoort last year was similar: from eighth on the grid, he was in a class of his own, choosing different lines to his rivals’ on the wet track, sealing the Formula Regional title with a win, with one round to spare in the championship.

“When you read about that phone call in Silverstone, you have to remember one thing,” says Roberto. “It was during the Formula 1 race weekend. Kimi was... I don’t want to say ‘depressed’, but very down after qualifying, so he called Toto – and they spoke for half an hour on the phone. And Kimi really appreciated it, and it was really important for him to see Toto under the podium next day when he won. Not every 17-year-old driver can rely on that support.”

Antonelli was raised in a motorsport environment due to his father's racing team, and like Verstappen lives and breathes racing

Photo by: FIA

The F2 stumble

“I didn’t plan on coming to F2 and winning everything,” Kimi said to Chinchero. “I was always aware that the jump from Formula Regional would be very challenging and I was aware that I had a lot to learn, which I’m still doing.

“But as ready as I was for an initial learning phase, I have to say that the difficulties we had in the first races took us by surprise. My personal goal was always clear: to improve race after race and to bring the team the best possible result. When you go through difficult times, I think you come out stronger in the end. I had a difficult period, but it was also nice to come back stronger, Silverstone and Budapest confirmed it.”

Even though bypassing F3 was always going to mean needing a bit more time to adapt to F2, it’s fair to say Antonelli’s rookie campaign was far from impressive in the beginning. But by the middle point of the season it was also very clear that it wasn’t just Antonelli struggling – it was his team, too.

Prema, one of the strongest squads in junior series, suddenly had difficulty finding the right set-up for the new F2 car. The results of Antonelli’s team-mate showed it, too – Bearman, who finished sixth last year, only made it to the podium for the first time at the end of June...

“Kimi was lucky, and he admits it, to have Bearman with him as team-mate,” says Chinchero. “Nobody can question Bearman, because last year he won four races. So, that was a big advantage for Kimi.

“You see: OK, the car at the moment isn’t good. So, for Kimi in that situation, there’s only one way: ‘What can I do? I have my benchmark, and it’s Ollie. So, it is important for me now to get to his level and then see if the car will improve.’ It was the first year he was struggling with the car. But now he understood how important it is, especially in the bad times, to be part of a group.

“When he won the feature race in Hungary,
I saw some mechanics crying under the podium. Prema mechanics! When you see it, you understand how tough that time was for the
team, which is so used to winning.

“But what impressed me is that he insists that he doesn’t want to consider himself an F1 driver, until the day Mercedes announces something. ‘I’m Formula 2 guy,’ he says. ‘I’m an F2 driver who had the opportunity to test an F1 car.’”

Struggles with Prema in F2 may serve Antonelli in a good stead if, as expected, he is promoted to Mercedes in 2025

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Future perfect

“I see it as a dream,” Antonelli said when asked directly about his F1 prospects. “Some degree of worry is always there,
the prospect of not being able to perform
I think frightens everyone.

“My approach is to see it as a great opportunity to learn, grow and also enjoy the moment. I’m not afraid of being judged, I know Mercedes has a clear opinion about my potential. Already this season in F2 the championship didn’t kick off in the best way but there were no negative thoughts.”

It’s been almost 20 years since an Italian driver won an F1 race, and all four of the Italian drivers who have debuted in the championship in the 21st century have never finished on the podium. Understandably, there’s a lot of excitement surrounding Antonelli’s F1 future in the country.

"I’m not afraid of being judged, I know Mercedes has a clear opinion about my potential"
Kimi Andrea Antonelli

“It’s big,” says Roberto. “It’s really big. I’ve been working in motorsport since 1991, it’s the first time I’ve seen an Italian driver who is doing something really special.

“He was very, very good in karting. It was then that Mercedes got him. But in the past, we already had a superstar in karting. Giorgio Pantano was really good – and so there was a big expectation. But it didn’t materialise.

“But when Mercedes picked Kimi, people started to wonder, ‘Hey, who is this guy? Why is Mercedes having an Italian in karting?’ That was when he caught people’s attention, and he always delivered since: he arrived in single-seaters and won everything in his first year, Italian and German F4, and then he won everything in his second year...

“And at that point you just say, OK, this guy isn’t just good, he’s probably special. When you hear him talk, you just know it.”

Can Antonelli deliver on the enormous expectation?

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images