At Spa, in the summer of 2025, Andrea Kimi Antonelli had tears in his eyes in front of a microphone. Another botched qualifying, and scoring a single point felt like a mirage. Nine races in a row without one, and Toto Wolff still remembers those who, in other teams, said the kid did not belong at Mercedes, perhaps not even in Formula 1.
A year later, on the same circuit, he dominated and left no opening for his team mate or anyone else. On Sunday in Mexico City, a third place was enough to make him world champion at twenty years and sixty-eight days: the youngest ever, and the first Italian since Alberto Ascari, who won in 1953. What changed in twelve months?
The Driver the Car Was Waiting For
Part of the answer lies in the rulebook. The new cars run 18-inch wheels, with a lower sidewall and a smaller contact patch, and the risk is overloading the front tyres with sharp, sudden steering. Those who made aggression on corner entry their margin, like Leclerc and Verstappen, have had to rethink how they drive. Antonelli did not. Six years ago he told Autosport he wanted to cut the time between braking and turn-in to a minimum, and that he had always driven that way.
Chance, fate or the mental elasticity of a twenty-year-old: the level of excellence these cars demand sits squarely within his range. George Russell, soft and progressive on the steering, is his counterpart, and he admitted as much himself, saying Antonelli's style is perfect for these cars, especially on low-grip tracks. Then there is a subtler gift, bringing the tyre into the right window quickly and keeping it there for a long time. In Texas, after a complicated Saturday, he stretched the first stint far longer than the others and finished the race almost on parade. The talent of Andrea Kimi Antonelli shows right there, when he beats what the simulations say. Dino Chiesa, who followed him in karting, calls it a quality you either have or you don't: going to the limit straight away.
The Boy Under the Tent
Chiesa took him into his team at eleven. He remembers him curious, always wandering the paddock to watch and learn, without a phone, with his mother driving him and the mechanics' tent as a second home. He would put the kart down and go straight to 99 per cent, half a second ahead of his team mates, who only caught up after four days of testing. At thirteen or fourteen, already a European champion, he would run to hug Chiesa after a win, clinging to his belly the way children do with a grown-up. Then he would pull down his visor.
The flaw, according to Chiesa, was his kindness. Too humble, too fair, he had to take a few knocks from older drivers to understand that at some point you have to be hard, while staying within the rules. At home it worked the other way round: his father Marco, a man of the track, was severe even about victories.
“You could have won by a hundred metres, you got four corners wrong.”
He said it to a boy who had just won by fifty metres. In 2020, at the World Championship in Portimao, a violent crash led to surgery and a long layoff: what weighed on him most, Chiesa recalls, was staying away from the track. By January he was already back in shape, and in 2021 he won the European title ahead of Camara, Lindblad and Tsolov, all from Chiesa's team. How much is talent and how much is work? Fifty and fifty, he answers. What remains to be seen is how much it costs to become ruthless without ceasing to be fair.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Maranello's No
There is a version of the story in which the boy from Bologna drives a Ferrari. There was a contact: Massimo Rivola, then head of the Academy, wanted him in the programme straight away, then they told him he was too small to be assessed. Maurizio Arrivabene, team principal at the time, has explained that Maranello lacked the structure to look after children so young. Mercedes took him, at eleven or twelve depending on who tells it.
That no carries a price Wolff has put into figures: more than ten million euros over nine years, covering development, sacrifices, work with engineers and the commitment of his parents. It was not a miracle, he said, and it did not come out of nowhere. In 2024 the two philosophies played out in full: Ferrari chose Hamilton, the certainty of experience, while Mercedes brought Antonelli from Formula 2 straight into the team, with no apprenticeship elsewhere. Bearman, a year older, stayed at Haas. Today Verstappen says that driving for fifth or sixth place, however much you respect the brand, makes no sense. Antonelli, asked about the same thing, answered with grace: he feels he owes a debt to those who believed in him at twelve. Meanwhile he earns about three million euros fixed, like a rookie, because the contract was signed before his debut, when he had no bargaining power at all.
A Country That Recognises Itself
In Casalecchio, the town near Bologna where he grew up, more than five hundred people watched the race in a theatre. The mayor remembers the family garage, the boy walking to school, the card games with his grandfather. “Kimi is one of ours,” he said. For a country that lives on football, stopping for a driver is already odd; it is odder still when the driver does not race the Red. La Gazzetta ran «Kimitico», L'Équipe gave him its front page, Marca chose a very Italian «Bravissimo!».
At Monza, in September, the red tide had already adopted him. He started nineteenth because of an engine penalty and won, the first Italian to do so at home since Scarfiotti, in 1966. It is a slightly schizophrenic affection, that of the Ferrari fans: they would like him at Maranello, but they know that for him home is somewhere else.
The number stays 12. For the first time since 2021, the 1 will not appear on the grid, because Andrea Kimi Antonelli decided to keep Senna's number, his childhood reference, and also out of superstition: the 1, he says, never brought him luck. He sees it as a way of staying grounded, a point to restart from rather than a finish line to defend. But the finish line is there now, and the kid becomes everyone's target. What happens to a talent built with so much patience when everyone starts chasing it? And how many like him do we lose every year, because at eleven no team has the structure, or the will, to believe?