Kimi Antonelli won his home Italian Grand Prix at Monza from 19th on the grid, a drive his team boss, Toto Wolff, compared to a miracle. The Mercedes driver had taken an engine penalty for exceeding his season allocation, which put him at the back.
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Wolff said afterwards that he had seen it coming on the Saturday. He expected one of his two drivers to win, either George Russell from the front row or Antonelli from the penultimate one. He had talked to Antonelli’s father the day before, and said the father saw it coming too.
How he got from 19th to first
Antonelli himself had thought a podium was possible, no more. He was 14th after a cautious first lap and 12th a lap later, when Charles Leclerc crashed his Ferrari and the red flag stopped the race. “With the red flag, I was already P12,” he said, and from there he believed he had a shot.
He was eighth a lap after the restart, and seventh a lap later once he had passed Lando Norris’s McLaren. By lap 13 he was third, 1.8 seconds behind the leader, Max Verstappen, with Russell between them. Three laps on, the two Mercedes cars ran first and second.
Mercedes then split its strategy. When Lance Stroll’s Aston Martin stopped at the first corner and brought out a virtual safety car, the team called Antonelli in for fresh tyres, while Russell stayed out on hards. Wolff said the team’s software had favoured the one-stop plan. Antonelli won anyway.
The season around the win
Antonelli came to Monza leading Russell by 59 points in the drivers’ championship. He is 20 and in his second F1 season. His run this year included five straight wins, from the Chinese Grand Prix to Monaco. No Italian has won the world title since Alberto Ascari in 1953.
Two days before the race, he told the Guardian that the sport is great but “at times it can be very, very brutal”. He said speculation about his future last year had been hard on him. One low point followed the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix, when a late mistake let Norris past and he was accused of moving over on purpose. Being blamed in public for something he “would never do on purpose” was tough, he said.
Where he came from
Antonelli comes from Bologna and is the son of the sportscar racer Marco Antonelli. Mercedes scouted him in karting, and he made his car racing debut at 15. He won the Italian and ADAC F4 titles in 2022, then Mercedes moved him straight to Formula 2, skipping F3.
His F2 season turned midway through, with a sprint win in the rain at Silverstone and a feature win at the Hungaroring. Shortly after his 18th birthday, Mercedes announced him at the Italian Grand Prix as the replacement for Lewis Hamilton. His rookie year in 2025 brought three podiums and 150 points.
Mercedes first named him as a race driver at Monza. This month, he gave the home crowd its winner there.
