‘On Verstappen’s level’ – Who is Andrea Kimi Antonelli?

Andrea Kimi Antonelli is a name you will be hearing a lot more after Mercedes made the bold decision to sign him as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement for 2025.

As Hamilton joins Ferrari next year, Italian teenager Antonelli will make his F1 debut with one of the sport’s biggest teams as team-mate to George Russell.

Just three years ago, Antonelli was winning in karting and now he will replace F1’s most successful driver.

It is a remarkable and rapid journey to F1 for the 18-year-old, so you may be wondering who he is and why he is so highly rated.

After Antonelli participated in his first F1 practice session at the Italian Grand Prix and was unveiled by Mercedes in Monza, here’s a closer look at the young star’s story to date.

Rosberg: Antonelli could lead the next F1 generation

Like all racing drivers, Antonelli raced in karts as a child and was scouted by Mercedes at just 13 years old in 2019 to join their junior programme.

He won pretty much everything he stepped into, which is rare for a driver in karting, and drove for 2016 F1 world champion Nico Rosberg’s karting team for a period.

“He can be the talent of the next generation for sure. Now it is Verstappen, then it could be Antonelli,” said Rosberg.

“But it is early. I was watching his press conference on Saturday and was shaking my head.

“I would not have been able to cope with that at 18. He has a bad car in F2 and is not able to show what he can do. For Mercedes, I understand it is the right decision.”

Antonelli dramatically crashed out in his first official F1 session at Monza just 10 minutes into first practice.

Prior to that, there was a huge amount of attention outside his garage and he was lighting up the timing screens with fastest sectors until he spun at the final corner.

“I feel for him a bit because he’s been talked about by Mercedes for months as the replacement to the greatest of all-time, Lewis Hamilton,” continued Rosberg.

“He’s 18 years old, he’s Italian and does his FP1 outing at Monza. The whole world was watching. It doesn’t get more pressure than that.

“To put it in the wall was painful and that is tough mentally. I looked online and every comment is laughing ‘that guy is replacing Hamilton’. He is strong mentally though and the great drivers get through that.”

Rosberg stated earlier this year: “He’s phenomenal. He’s like Max Verstappen-level, it’s really unbelievable.”

Antonelli’s incredible rise to F1

Having dominated various karting championships, Antonelli made the switch to racing cars at 15 years old.

In his first full Italian F4 campaign in 2022, Antonelli had a difficult start to the season with gearbox issues and contact on the opening weekend. However, he went on to win 13 of the remaining 17 races, generating plenty of attention along the way.

Alongside Italian F4, Antonelli competed in German F4, and took seven consecutive pole positions and seven victories from the opening eight races. Despite missing three rounds, he dominated the championship to win by 47 points.

In October 2022, Antonelli won the F4 category in the FIA Motorsport Games with a broken wrist, which perhaps says something about his character as well as his calmness.

The next jump up the ladder was to Formula Regional in 2023. Antonelli continued to impress as he won the Formula Regional Middle East Championship 12 months ago and the European Championship last year.

Mercedes were so impressed they opted to put Antonelli straight into Formula 2, rather than Formula 3. It is reminiscent of Max Verstappen’s fast rise when he went from karting to Formula 3 to Formula 1 in the space of 15 months.

Sky Italy F1 expert Roberto Chinchero has followed Antonelli’s career closely and says he has never seen an Italian driver as strong as him.

“When he started karting, immediately we saw he was a super guy, so lots of junior programmes approached him like Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and others,” said Chinchero.

“But you always ask, how good will he be in single-seaters? The answer is, very strong. After his first F4 tests with Prema, I called the team and asked how was he doing. The team said ‘absolutely amazing’.

“We said ‘let’s wait for the first race because testing is testing’. The first races confirmed that this guy is very, very good. We have had no Italians like Kimi until now.”

Antonelli finds form at right time

In February this year, when Hamilton announced his shock move to leave Mercedes and join Ferrari at the start of 2025, there was immediately talk about whether Antonelli could replace the seven-time world champion.

The Italian had not turned a wheel in Formula 2 yet and he made a slow start to his campaign but won two races before the summer break – first in the rain at Silverstone, then with victory in the Feature Race in Budapest.

He is only sixth in the F2 standings but has outscored Prema team-mate and Ferrari junior Oliver Bearman, who will join the Haas F1 team next year.

After Mercedes boss Toto Wolff’s very public attempts to lure Verstappen away from Red Bull came to nothing, at least in terms of the 2025 season, it was all but confirmed that Antonelli would be fast-tracked to one of the sport’s most desirable seats.

“I made up my mind five minutes after Lewis Hamilton told me that he’s going to Ferrari,” said Wolff.

“Obviously we were discussing other options and looking at the Max idea – we didn’t discount it completely with looking at what happened at Red Bull.

“But instinctively that is the line-up with these two [Russell and Antonelli] that I always wanted, bearing in mind the fast-tracking that we did with Kimi and everything related there too, but that was immediately what I wanted to do.”

Russell: Antonelli exceptionally fast

As well as his F2 season, Antonelli has been testing old Mercedes F1 cars, first the 2021 machine in April, then the 2022 car over the last few months, at tracks across Europe.

Antonelli tested the 2022 Mercedes at Silverstone alongside Russell and the team’s reserve driver Mick Schumacher. It has not been made public just how quick Antonelli was, but it appears his times were mightily impressive.

More TPCs (Testing of Previous Cars) are planed for Antonelli this year, plus one more first practice outing, at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

“Kimi’s an exceptional driver, such an amazing track record, in his junior series, always destined to be a Formula 1 driver,” said Russell.

“I think it sort of shows the strength also of the Mercedes junior programme and reminds me a bit of my journey, starting off as a young kid, walking through the doors in Formula 3 and climbing the ladder.

“I see him every time he’s racing F2. We always keep a close eye on how he’s getting on, watching all of the races.

“We did a test together in Silverstone a couple of months ago, so that was a great opportunity for him to get behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car. He was exceptionally fast.”

Mercedes have been trying to ease the pressure on Antonelli as the spotlight has grown on him over the last 12 months.

However, when even Hamilton said he would choose the teenager to replace him, it is hard to not get excited about an up-and-coming driver, who has the opportunity to do something spectacular in F1 over the years to come.

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Source : Sky Sports