The 20-year-old Mercedes prodigy became the youngest driver to win the Formula One World Championship. But the Italian driver’s journey began much earlier than most people know.
Kimi Antonelli was born on August 25, 2006, in Bologna, Italy and his father, Marco Antonelli, was a racing driver and is the owner of a karting team called AKM Motorsport. He was also a huge fan of Ayrton Senna.
Kimi inherited this passion, and the boy started his kart journey at 7 years old in his home country, and he has never hidden that he is a huge Ayrton Senna fan.
THE BEGINING OF A STAR
Kimi started his karting career by winning the Italian championship in his category during his first year of karting. Over the following years, he won other kart championships, like WSK Champions Cup, the South Garda Winter Cup and the ROK Cup International Final in 2018. These victories established him as one of the most promising karting talents in the world.
The year of 2019 was one of the most important in Kimi’s life, it was the season when Mercedes signed the 12-years-old driver in April of 2019 to the junior program after winning the WSK Super Master Series, the WSK Euro Series, the WSK Open Cup and the WSK Final Cup. The young boy finished second in the European Karting Championship and fifth in the Karting World Championship that year.
In 2020, Kimi continued his development in karting, winning races and titles, including the European Karting Championship and the Italian Karting Championship. A year later, the young Italian took the next step in his career by joining Prema in the Italian Formula 4 Championship. Despite competing only in the final three rounds of the season, the 15-year-old impressed by securing three podium finishes in nine races.
Kimi also competed in the 2021-2022 Abu Dhabi Formula 4 Championship and ended up winning his first race in the category.
The year of 2022 was filled with success for Kimi, he won both the Italian and German F4 championships, it was in that time that Mercedes made a decision that would change Kimi’s career.
GREAT OPPORTUNITIES COME WITH GREAT PRESSURE
In 2023, Antonelli raced in FRECA, a category positioned between Formula 4 and Formula 3 and ended up winning the competition two races earlier than the end of the championship. Kimi also won the Formula Regional Middle East Championship at the beginning of the season.
These victories made him a superstar on the motorsport world, and with these, Prema Racing and Mercedes made a risky decision and promoted the young Italian straight to Formula 2 in 2024, without him having raced in Formula 3.
Kimi made his Formula 2 debut alongside Ollie Bearman. Antonelli’s start in this category was not easy; the young driver only secured his first win in the Silverstone Sprint Race. One round later, in Budapest, won his first feature race and became the youngest-ever winner in Formula 2 history. The 2025 Formula 2 championship ended with the Brazilian driver Gabriel Bortoleto as the winner of the competition, on the other hand, Kimi ended his first and only season in F2 in sixth place.
Besides competing in F2, the Italian also tested for Mercedes in F1 and made his first appearance in the category during a free practice session at Monza. His first public outing did not go as planned, as he crashed out during the session. However, just one day after the accident, Mercedes announced the 18-year-old as its Formula 1 driver for the 2025 season.
“HE’S TOO YOUNG, YOU SHOULD PUT HIM IN A SMALLER TEAM”, SAID THE MEDIA
Toto Wolff, the team principal, received a lot of messages saying that he made the wrong decision by putting a young boy to replace the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton. But he didn’t listen to anyone and gave Kimi the opportunity of a lifetime.
The Italian’s Formula One debut was better than everyone expected, Antonelli finished the Australian GP in the fourth position, and the next races went well, until the European GPs.
THE DEATH THREATS TO A ROOKIE
After the first race in Europe, the Mercedes rookie started struggling in the following Grands Prix. Kimi didn’t finish the Emilia Romagna race; at the Monaco Grand Prix, the driver finished in 19th place; in Spain he did not even finish the race.
In Canada, Antonelli finished third and celebrated his maiden Formula One podium, appearing to leave a difficult period behind him. However, the momentum failed to continue, as the following races turned out to be even tougher than the ones, he had already endured. It was during that part of the season that Kimi started receiving offensive messages and even death threats because of his performance on his first year in Formula One.
In Qatar, after a mistake that allowed Lando Norris to overtake him at the final corner, some “fans” claimed that Kimi had done it on purpose to help Norris win the World Championship in the final race of the season.
After the incident, several drivers spoke out in the media to defend the young driver against the wave of offensive comments he received online.
“I think it is pretty unacceptable what happened, what was written and the abuse online. Obviously, it all started with a mistake from Red Bull guys and, of course, they apologized, and that is OK. People make mistakes, especially when you do not have the full facts, but I think those thousands of people behind their keyboards have no excuse. They really need to take a hard look at themselves in the mirror and think why that is acceptable. Not just for F1, but just society altogether. I just struggle to comprehend it”, said George Russell, Kimi’s teammate.
Other drivers also came to Antonelli’s defense, and the online abuse gradually began to fade in the aftermath of the Qatar Grand Prix. The Mercedes driver ended the season in seventh place, with 150 points. He was the highest-placed rookie in the championship.
NEW SEASON, NEW CHALLENGES
With the new regulations for the 2026 season, all the teams had to reinvent themselves, so there was no clear favorite before the season began.
Mercedes started the season on top, with George Russell taking victory in the opening Grand Prix while Antonelli finished second. However, it was the young Italian who stole the spotlight at the following round, claiming his maiden Formula One victory at just 19 years old. Heading into the third race, many expected the championship battle to develop into a head-to-head fight between the two Mercedes drivers. Although Russell would eventually go on to secure the World Championship, his advantage largely came from his seven seasons of Formula One experience, compared to Antonelli’s single year in the category.
However, Kimi surprised everyone by winning the next four races and opened a 50-point gap over his teammate, proving to his critics that he was ready to compete at a high level against every driver on the grid.
At the Grand Prix, the Italian suffered a retirement and failed to win any of the following three races. At this point, many expected George Russell to take over the championship lead, but that was not the case.
While Antonelli remained at the top of the standings, Russell lost second place to Lewis Hamilton. Despite going through a difficult spell, the young Italian’s lead in the championship was never seriously threatened. It was at the Mexico City Grand Prix that Kimi Antonelli became the youngest-ever World Champion, at 20 years and 68 days. Breaking several records before the season had even ended the Italian showed the world that Mercedes and Toto Wolff were right to put a teenager in a Formula One car.
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The article above was edited by Ana Clara Bezson Dalla Costa.
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