Antonelli's coming of age

OK, the headline might be a little premature given Kimi Antonelli is still only 19 years old, but the very fact he is only 19 years old and able to produce performances like the ones over the past few days at Interlagos is remarkable.

The hype around Antonelli was huge even before he got close to Formula 1, let alone when Mercedes then put him in for an FP1 session just after his 18th birthday at Monza and Toto Wolff started waxing lyrical about his stunning speed over 90 percent of a flying lap, until the Italian crashed at Parabolica.

A day later, he was confirmed as one of the team’s race drivers for 2025, and the excitement went up another level, but so did the concern that it might just be a little bit too much too soon. Not that anyone doubted Antonelli’s talent, but whether he would be better off spending another year in F2 honing his craft and gaining experience before making the step up, or at least developing at another team away from the front-running spotlight. Given Wolff described Antonelli’s most recent performance at Monza as “underwhelming,” it wasn’t that long ago that you could have still raised similar questions. Since then the Italian has demonstrated a step forward that perhaps would only have been possible by being part of the Mercedes lineup.

Better performances in Baku and Singapore were encouraging, as was a sixth place ahead of George Russell in Mexico City, but it was the way he put everything together for an entire Sprint weekend in Brazil that caught the eye.

Second to Lando Norris in every single session that mattered, Antonelli was the Mercedes leader over the past three days.

“I think all weekend he was strong from the get-go. It's good to see,” team principal Wolff said. “Maybe it was coming to a track that he didn't know, it's a bit easier. Expectations are maybe lower. Maybe pressure is not as high as some of the Europeans and then the execution was faultless at the end.

“Being able to fend off Max (Verstappen) on a newer and softer tire, that was really strong and testament to what's to come.

“I think it's also managing his own expectations. He's so young. He's just 19 years old. You come to a track where you know that you've performed very well in the past – some of the European ones – and then you're on the back foot…

“You have a sensational teammate who is as good as it gets. I think coming to a track that you don't know is almost like less pressure. Your expectations are lower, everybody else's expectations are lower, the kind of fan pressure is less than some of the European tracks. I think that plays a big role.

“It's a development. Next year he will come to these tracks that he knows, without expecting to kill it. That's the learning year, the year that we always expected to come, with all the ups and downs.

“Today is an up, definitely a good moment. There will be more difficult ones, but let's see the next few races. I think we're seeing the young boy becoming a young man and performing.”

Brazil was a total package for the Italian youngster, minus what's clearly an imminent win. Mark Thompson/Getty Images

For Antonelli himself, it’s a weekend that gives him a lot of confidence, showing that he can not only display potential, but deliver on that potential with a complete weekend.

“I've had a good run so far, a couple of strong races,” Antonelli said. “This weekend was the weekend where we put things more together, which is what I need to do, especially for the team. I've been enjoying this weekend a lot and looking forward to the next ones.”

One moment in Antonelli’s race that maybe wasn’t ideal: the start and restart. He had to defend on both occasions and was hit by Oscar Piastri on the safety car resumption when going three-wide with Charles Leclerc. Piastri was penalized, but Antonelli admits he was on the back foot into the corner and lucky to continue.

“I accelerated a little bit on the wet patch, so I got wheel spin and lost momentum going into Turn 1,” the rookie said. “To be fair, I found myself in a very difficult position because I had one car on the outside and one car on the inside.

“I tried to brake late, not too late. The problem is I didn't see the car next to me anymore. I still tried to do a decent line for the position I was in, and ended up getting hit. I was lucky to come away from that, because obviously I hit Charles quite hard.

“Unfortunately, I ended his race, but on my side, I was lucky to come away with not such big damage. I had minor damage on the car – I think the steering wheel was not fully straight – but I was very lucky to come away with it and to be able to continue my race.”

The performance from that point on was impressive enough, but as Wolff alluded to, where Antonelli showed even more reason to be excited about his potential was when under immense pressure from Verstappen in the closing laps.

“[It was] way too stressful," he said. "When Max did the last pit stop and Bono (race engineer Peter Bonnington) told me the gap, I was like, ‘I might be in trouble,’ because he was just nine seconds behind. Obviously, he was on new softs.

“This race he had very strong pace. He did an amazing job coming back and he just put me under a lot of pressure at the end. I had to really push the tire to the limit and it wasn't easy, but I think we did our best and I'm really happy with that.

“I found my rhythm. Obviously, when he was closing in, I raised the pace, I started to push a bit more. I found my rhythm. With this car, with dirty air, it's a bit difficult to follow, so I tried to use that to my advantage and it paid off.”

Mercedes will also point to its commitment to Antonelli’s rookie year as paying off too, because if it has a championship-contending car in 2026, he’s starting to show the signs that he will be able to join Russell in winning races with regularity.