F1: Andrea Antonelli Knows He’s Filling Big Shoes at Mercedes

The first appearance in a Formula 1 paddock for Andrea Antonelli, the new driver for Mercedes, came at the 2014 German Grand Prix, when he was 7. It wasn’t authorized.

“My dad decided to hide me inside a stack of tires and wheel me through on a trolley,” Antonelli, also known as Kimi, said in an interview provided by his team. His father, Marco, ran a team that was competing in a support category. “We put an umbrella on top to make me harder to see! I got through and into the pit lane, and my dad’s friend got me a pass. I had a look around for an hour and it was such a cool experience.”

Antonelli, who was not available for an interview, will race for Mercedes six years after he joined its young driver program. At 18, he will be the youngest driver this season. He passed his road car driving test only in January.

Antonelli won two Formula 4 titles in his first full season in 2022 and then two Formula Regional titles in 2023. Antonelli skipped Formula 3, heading straight to Formula 2 in 2024, where he won twice, and finished sixth overall.

“Since the beginning he was immediately fast,” René Rosin, team principal of Prema Racing, the team that ran Antonelli for three years, said in an interview in February. “There were some rookie mistakes, it’s normal, but when he arrived in F4 in the full season he was absolutely a machine.

“He likes to be close to people and interact with people, he’s very professional, he knows what he wants to do, he wants to win, he wants to achieve the maximum possible, and when the results are not coming he’s upset with himself and always tries in a positive way to improve, it’s very much a good mentality.”

Rosin recounted a rainy 2023 race at Zandvoort, in the Netherlands, where Antonelli was “roughly a second faster than everyone else” in equal machinery and won by “an insane margin,” highlighting his ability.

When Mercedes learned last year that Lewis Hamilton would leave the team for Ferrari for 2025, Antonelli became the prime candidate to replace him. Antonelli embarked on an extensive testing program last year and embedded himself within the team at Grands Prix.

“I’ve been spending a lot of time at the factory trying to do a lot of team building as well,” he said at F1’s launch event in February. “But so far it’s been really interesting, and it’s gone well. I’ve been really trying to focus day by day, focusing on the progress and trying to focus on trying to learn as many things as possible, because what I want to avoid is arriving to Melbourne and having some bad surprises.” (The season’s first race will be in Australia on March 16.)

Antonelli has big shoes to fill. Hamilton’s six titles and 84 victories made it the most successful partnership between one driver and a team. But Antonelli is adopting a realistic viewpoint.

“I don’t find it right to say that I’m his replacement,” Antonelli said, referring to Hamilton. “He has done so much in the sport. I feel [I am] the next Mercedes driver. And I really want to make my own story.”

Mercedes is a front-runner, but its fortunes have been mixed under the rules that were introduced in 2022. It has won only five races in three years, of which four came in 2024, and its fourth place last year was its lowest since 2012. That has eased some of the pressure on Antonelli, with 2025 regarded as a transition year ahead of new rules in 2026.

“I don’t have a lot of expectations to be honest,” he said. “What I’m really going to do is try to focus on the process. Try to enjoy it as well. But definitely something I really want to do is start with a good rhythm and try to build from it. And try to be consistent.”

Antonelli’s teammate, George Russell, 27, is entering his seventh season and fourth with Mercedes.

“When I look back to myself when I was Kimi’s age, I don’t think you’re any slower, you just gain experience over time,” Russell said at the Mercedes event. “You’ve got the speed, you’ve got it. And if you don’t, you don’t. It’s almost as simple as that. I’m sure Kimi’s going to keep me on my toes, and we’ll be pushing each other.”

Rosin has guided several drivers to Formula 1 in recent years, including Charles Leclerc, Oscar Piastri, Pierre Gasly and Oliver Bearman, Antonelli’s Formula 2 teammate last year. Rosin is sure Antonelli will thrive.

“Basically, both drivers last year that we had, and Pierre, Charles, Oscar, all of them, they are all drivers that deserve to be in Formula 1 and will demonstrate what being a good driver means,” Rosin said. “I think he [Antonelli] is part of this elite group of drivers that they are there because they deserve it.”