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Call it predestined. Andrea Kimi Antonelli puts an end to a 73-year wait and Italy, after Giuseppe Farina in 1950 and the back to back of Alberto Ascari in ’52 and ’53, returns to having a world champion Formula One driver. This feat was signed by this young boy from Bologna born in 2006, a lover of tagliatelle with meat sauce, who grew up watching old videos of Ayrton Senna and covering his first kilometers under the watchful eye of his father Marco, also a driver and then owner of AKM Motorsport, a team involved in several GT championships. Toto Wolff, the deus ex machina of the Mercedes era, had seen it long and hard when he was called upon to choose the heir of a seven-time world champion like Lewis Hamilton: after a normal season of learning, Kimi exploded, becoming at 20 years, two months and 7 days the youngest world champion ever. The record of another young champion like Sebastian Vettel, world champion for the first time in 2010 at 23 years, 4 months and 11 days, was shattered. Antonelli didn’t skip ahead, he devoured them: after having made his way through karting – winning his first titles at the age of nine – and having attracted the attention of Mercedes, which included him in its Junior program in April 2019, in 2022 he became F4 Adac and Italian F4 champion and the following year he won the Formula Regional Middle East and European championships.
And after he confirmed all his talent in Formula 2, the doors of the A series of motorsport opened wide for him. Just 18 years old, he made his debut in the first free practice at Monza where he was also announced as a driver for the 2025 season. A year in which he collected three podiums which served as a springboard for the season of his definitive consecration: second immediately in Australia, in China he became the youngest ever to win a pole position in F1 (19 years, 6 months and 18 days, also in this case beating Vettel who in the 2008 Italian GP was 21 years old, 2 months and 11 days). The weekend in Shanghai will also give him his first victory in the circus, which will also be followed by successes in Suzuka, Miami, Montreal and Monte Carlo: five consecutive pearls that put him at the top of the World Championship and by a wide margin. If it is true that Mercedes was the best at interpreting the new regulations, Kimi must be given credit for being able to capitalize on the superiority of the Silver Arrows in the best possible way, even causing a crisis for a more experienced teammate like George Russell, whose ambitions were nipped in the bud. But what distinguishes an excellent pilot from a champion is the ability to stay afloat even when the sea is rough. And Antonelli, even when the storm rages, keeps the bar straight.
Imola and Barcelona are the darkest pages, from which however the 20-year-old driver from Bologna emerges strengthened. And even if Ferrari and McLaren allow themselves a bit of glory up front, he is always there, until the masterpiece in Monza: on a track that on paper was not favorable to his Mercedes, the team decided to replace the power unit, forcing him to start from the back of the grid. But what seemed like it was going to be a defensive weekend turns into a triumph: Antonelli climbs up from the 19th spot on the grid and celebrates under the checkered flag, the first Italian to win his home GP after sixty years. The rest is history: while the revived Max Verstappen returns to make his loud voice like in the good old days, Kimi double locks the safe with the loot and sends out a warning to sailors: there is a new sheriff in town.