The first appearance on a Formula 1 Paddock for Andrea Antonelli, the new Mercedes driver came to the 2014 German Grand Prix when she was 7. He was not authorized.
“My dad decided to hide me in a tire stack and grip me in a stroller,” said Antonelli, also known as Kimi, in an interview with his team. His father, Mark, ran a team that competed in a support category. “We put an umbrella on top to make me harder to see!
Antonelli, who was not available for an interview, will compete for Mercedes six years after entering the young driver’s program. At 18, it will be the youngest driver this season. He passed his road car only in January.
Antonelli won two Formula 4 titles in his first full season in 2022 and then two Formula’s regional titles in 2023. Antonelli omits Formula 3, heading straight to Formula 2 in 2024, where he won twice and finished the sixth overall.
“From the beginning he was immediately fast,” said René Rosin, head of the Prema Racing team, who ran to Antonelli for three years in an interview in February. “There were some champions’ mistakes. It is normal, but when it arrived at the F4 all the time it was absolutely a machine.
“He likes to be close to people and interacts with people. He’s very professional. He knows what he wants to do. He wants to win. He wants to achieve the greatest possible and when the results do not come upset with himself and always tries positively to improve, he is very good.”
Rosin talked about a 2023 rainy race in Zandvoort, in the Netherlands, where Antonelli was “about a second faster than everyone else” on equal machines and won with “a crazy margin”, underlining his ability.
When Mercedes learned last year that Lewis Hamilton would leave the team for Ferrari for 2025, Antonelli became the primary candidate to replace him. Antonelli started an extensive test program last year and was incorporated into the Grands Prix team.
“I have spent a lot of time at the factory trying to make many group buildings,” he told the F1 launch in February. “But so far it has been really interesting, and it’s gone well. I’m really trying to concentrate day by day, focusing on progress and trying to focus on trying to find out as much as possible, because what I want to avoid is to get to Melbourne and I will have some bad.
Antonelli has big shoes to fill. Hamilton’s six titles and 84 wins made the most successful collaboration between a driver and a team. But Antonelli adopts a realistic view.
“I don’t think it is right to say that I am his replacement,” Antonelli said, referring to Hamilton. “He has done so much in the sport. I feel [I am] The next Mercedes Guide. And I really want to make my own story. ”
Mercedes is a champion, but his possessions have been mixed in accordance with the rules introduced in 2022.
“I don’t have many expectations to be honest,” he said. “What I’m really going to do is try to focus on the process. Try to enjoy it too. But definitely something I really want to do is start at a good pace and try to build it. And try to be consistent. ”
Antonelli’s teammate George Russell, 27, enters his seventh season and fourth with Mercedes.
“When I look back on myself when I was Kimi’s age. I don’t think you’re slower. You just gain experience over time,” Russell told Mercedes. “You have the speed, you have it. And if you don’t, you don’t. It’s almost so simple. I’m sure Kimi will hold me on my toes and push each other.”
Rosin has led several drivers to Formula 1 in recent years, such as Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, Pierre Gasly and Oliver Bearman, Antonelli’s Formula 2 teammate. Rosin is sure that Antonelli will thrive.
“Basically, both drivers we had last year, and Pierre, Charles, Oscar, all of them, are all drivers who deserve to be in Formula 1 and will prove what a good driver means,” Rosin said. ‘I think he [Antonelli] It is part of this elite group of drivers who are there because they deserve it. ”
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