Kimi Antonelli is the gift that keeps on giving for the Mercedes Formula 1 team. The Miami Grand Prix served up further proof that the Italian is a genuine title contender, and not just the sophomore-year apprentice logging experience under George Russell. At a track where he shone early in his rookie season, he joined the list of drivers who have taken their first three poles in three consecutive races. It’s a short list; the only others on it are Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher. Then on Sunday, he did what neither of those legends did by earning his first three wins from pole in three races on the bounce.
It wasn’t an easy afternoon. He made a bad start (a quirk of the car, not his fault) and had to fight with Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc in the early stages. The crucial moment came around the pit stops, where a good in-lap and out-lap ensured that when erstwhile leader Norris emerged from the pit exit on the next lap, Antonelli could muscle past. He then had to deal with a few shifting issues in the cockpit with the McLaren man breathing down his neck, before he crossed the line safely in front.
Meanwhile, Russell salvaged some decent points by taking P4, helped by late drama for Leclerc moving him up a spot. Antonelli now leads his team mate by 20 points, which is a handy but still tiny margin, given that the season still has 18 races to go. It’s also one that no one could have anticipated a couple of months ago—not even Antonelli’s mentor and number one fan, Toto Wolff.
The Austrian has always tried to keep the pressure off his protege. The need to do that is even greater now, with Wolff comparing him to Italy’s other sporting superstar, Jannik Sinner. This is a country that has enjoyed Ferrari’s successes over the decades, but has not had a homegrown World Champion since Alberto Ascari in 1953.
“I think the easier bit is making sure that he keeps both feet on the ground here in the team,” Wolff said on Sunday night. “His parents have played a big part in that to leave him grounded. The bigger problem is the Italian public. Now that they are not qualified for football [since Italy failed to make the FIFA World Cup], it’s all about Sinner and Antonelli. And Sinner won in Madrid. So it’s the two superstars, and that is something which we need to contain. There’s so many requests for his time, from the media, from sponsors—and it’s on us to keep the handbrake on that.”
What’s been impressive about Antonelli’s short F1 career is that it has been far from smooth sailing, yet he just grows stronger and stronger. He’s had some crashes—most infamously on his first flying lap in his first FP1 session in Monza in 2024, and then taking out Verstappen in Austria last year. He also had a lot of weekends in 2025 when he struggled to match Russell, with Wolff even calling his performance out as “underwhelming” at one point. But all the ups and downs have been part of the learning experience.
“You look throughout his trajectory, in karting and in the junior formulas, he was just outstanding,” said Wolff. “And it when you think about what we said last year—it’s exactly how he’s performing, how his development panned out. We had these great ups, the moments of brilliance, and then moments where he was allowed to make mistakes. We needed to calibrate and continue to mentor him, whilst having pressure on him. But he just takes it so well, and he’s able to analyze it, but then don’t overthink it. He compartmentalizes that. Okay, I made a mistake. I put it away.”
He processed all of that over the winter and came back in 2026 stronger in every way, benefiting from the fact that he’s been to all the venues and learned the rhythm of race weekends and the season as a whole. “He’s seen the Grands Prix, he’s worked with the team,” said Wolff. “He knows the pressure that the media puts upon him. But nevertheless, we just really need to stay calm here—because such a success for such a young man at that stage [means] all of Italy will be on him.”
Wolff stressed the role of Antonelli’s parents, who were in the room in the Miami paddock as he spoke. “Marco is pretty good at keeping his son grounded, even when he’s winning,” the Mercedes team boss said. “And I think all of us collectively that are close to him, we need to keep re-emphasizing and repeating the message: this is a long game. He has a killer of a teammate [who] is extremely fast. The others are catching up in performance.”
Wolff has his eyes on the future, and gave some indication of what could lie ahead. “We want to play the long game. He can hopefully win many championships over ten years, fifteen years, and we don’t want to stumble now with these huge expectations that will sit on him.”
“Because the moment he has a bad race, which will happen, or he makes a mistake, people will say, ‘Oh, maybe Kimi is not the superstar that we thought.’ And that’s why, let’s keep that trajectory. It’s a share price that’s going up [Wolff indicated an undulating path]. He’s nineteen years old. I don’t think I was able to take my own flight when I was nineteen and find my way to the terminal in the airport! So it’s incredible what he’s doing.”
Antonelli’s progress has not gone unnoticed elsewhere. McLaren boss Andrea Stella, who worked with loads of big names at Ferrari and played a key role in bringing Lando Norris and Oscar through their rookie years. “I think we should really pay credit to the quality of the driving—the consistency, the speed in both a single lap and in the race, and overall execution,” he said when asked by Road & Track about his team’s main rival. “We should pay credit to what Kimi is showing, and is actually delivering on track. I would have said after testing that George was in a stronger position, which was the case until Australia. But for some reasons, things seem to have turned around.”
Stella also pays credit to the Mercedes team. “I think this is thanks to the good work that Kimi must be doing with his engineers and with the people around him. There’s always a group of people around the driver, and success comes because this synergy works. And I think Kimi must be having all these conditions in place. Well done to Kimi. Well done to Mercedes as well.”
Can he keep his streak up in Montreal and beyond? It’ll be fascinating to see.
You Might Also Like