New Delhi, Nov 2 (IANS) When Kimi Antonelli crossed the finishing line in P3 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City, there were tears flowing down the eyes of the 20-year-old Mercedes driver, who had just scripted history.
The tears of joy made it hard for him to reply to the congratulatory messages he was getting on the radio from the team, with his parents in company at the Mercedes garage.
At 20 years and 68 days old, Antonelli became the youngest-ever F1 champion in the history of the sport, breaking the previous record of Sebastian Vettel, who was 23 years and 134 days old when he won the first of his four titles in 2010.
But the driver’s journey from one of the darkest points in his young racing career with Mercedes in 2025 to a title win in 2026 is a story of inspiration.
Several doubted him for even being competitive enough to feature in a sport like F1 that early in his career after he had a tough phase. He came into the seat of one of the most successful F1 drivers ever when he replaced a seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton, in the Mercedes W16.
The only real example of such a young driver being put in a top team like Mercedes was when Max Verstappen was put in to race for Red Bull in 2017.
The debut season tested Antonelli in many ways. He was out in Q1 in his first qualifying session in 2025 but managed to achieve a respectable fourth position in the race. Antonelli took a Sprint pole in Miami and won his maiden podium in Canada later, which promised that he might keep on improving.
But then came the hit, the dark point in Antonelli’s season. He endured a very difficult European leg. Three points from nine races in the continent had put immense pressure on him. Criticism followed. The teenager was reduced to tears after a tough Belgium weekend.
“Underwhelming this weekend, underwhelming,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said after Antonelli was ninth. “You can’t put the car in the gravel bed and expect to be there. All of the race was underwhelming.”
But the hard love might have pushed Antonelli to bounce back in the last few races in 2025. He finished second in Brazil in wet conditions in what was a memorable drive.
Then came 2026. Mercedes were tipped to have one of their drivers a champion when the sport made landscape changes in power unit regulations. But it was not Antonelli, who was the favourite; instead it was George Russell, who was called the favourite for the crown.
Mercedes were faster than everyone else, and Russell won the first race in Australia with Antonelli second. But then came a streak that will be remembered for a long time. Antonelli won his first five races in a row and became the youngest championship leader.
But the Italian was still far from a title. Antonelli then went out of the podium in Barcelona and then finished P15 in Silverstone after a wheel-guard failure. Russell was back on Antonelli’s heels with a gap of 25 points and Hamilton seven points further behind, which made it look like a three-way battle.
But the Italian then won the Belgian GP and also took podiums in Hungary and the Dutch GPs. Then he had to take a grid penalty for exceeding his power unit component allocation at the Italian GP.
He started on 19th, and this was the very track where he suffered crashes in practice in 2024 and 2025. Ghosts of that would have been fresh in his mind, but this time Antonelli produced a masterful drive to win the race from P19, making it an absolutely legendary drive.
He won the United States GP, which Wolff said was his “best race” in F1. That had almost guaranteed him the title coming into Mexico City.
The race was more of a title parade for the Italian, as he finished third from fourth to take the title with still four races on the calendar to go. When he spoke after the race, he reflected on the difficult last year and how people doubted him.
“The fact that some people said that I didn’t belong to F1,” he said, “or I wasn’t ready for it – which at some point last year I probably looked like I wasn’t – being able to experience those moments made me much more ready ahead of this year.
“Experiencing really low and difficult situations, high-pressure moments, really helped me to face certain situations this year and definitely they made me mature a lot as a driver, as a person.
“Still this year I’ve had moments where I could have done better, a lot better, so it’s just a constant learning process,” Antonelli said.
The driver who was doubted to belong to F1 last year has now won the world championship in just his second year. Italy has a world champion after 73 years, and Antonelli’s comeback is a fairy-tale one.
–IANS
vm/bc
