He is the star of the moment in Formula 1, the one who is making the whole world frown: Andrea Kimi Antonelli, the young 19-year-old Italian driver who drives for the Mercedes team and is the current leader (the youngest ever) of the 2026 World Championship drivers’ ranking. His is a story, as always when it comes to rare gems in Formula 1, which starts at an early age. At the age of seven he was already driving karts and it didn’t take long before the current Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, even hired him when Kimi was only twelve years old in 2019, including him in the Mercedes Junior Team program through which the Brackley team “raises” its drivers at home.
From that moment on it will be an all-downhill journey for Kimi Antonelli, until September 2024, when the English team announced him as an official Formula 1 driver in place of Lewis Hamilton for the 2025 season. Let’s discover in detail his path, his records and his victories that brought him to the Olympus of this sport.
Where does Antonelli come from and why is he called Kimi
Andrea Kimi Antonelli was born in Bologna on 25 August 2006 into a family that lives on motors. Contrary to what one might think, the name “Kimi” is not a reference to the former Formula 1 driver Kimi Raikkonen rather he was chosen on the suggestion of a friend of his father’s as he simply sounded good next to Andrea and Antonelli. His father Marco was a former racing driver and founder of the AKM Motorsport team, a structure involved in various competitions in the Gran Turismo world. It is precisely in this environment that Kimi grows up, surrounded from an early age by tracks, cars and races.
At just seven years old he got into a kart for the first time in the team founded by his father Marco and immediately demonstrated an extraordinary talent. The results arrived almost immediately: in 2015 he won the Easykart Trophy and the EasyKart Kart Grand Prix in the 60 category, the first step in a journey that in the following years would lead him to dominate youth competitions. In 2018 he joined the Kart Republic team and stood out by winning the WSK Champions Cup in the Mini category, while the following year he won the WSK Euro Series and the WSK Final Cup. In the meantime he also established himself on an international level, coming close to winning the FIA Karting European title. The definitive consecration comes between 2020 and 2021, when he becomes twice consecutive FIA Karting European champion in the OK category, one of the most prestigious goals in world karting.
Such a talent could not go unnoticed and so in 2019 Mercedes decided to include him in their junior program with a 10-year contract, starting to closely follow his growth. In 2021 Antonelli debuts in Formula 4 with the Prema team. Despite only competing for part of the season, he immediately managed to secure a podium in Monza and show his potential. However, it is in 2022 that he makes the definitive leap in quality: he participates in several Formula 4 championships at the same time and dominates the scene, winning both the Italian championship (winning 14 victories and 13 pole positions in just 20 races) and the German one. In these years, Antonelli chose to use the number 12 which would accompany him until his arrival in the top category, paying homage to his all-time idol Ayrton Senna.
The following year he won the title in the Formula Regional Middle East, then also won the European Formula Regional, two categories considered fundamental on the path to Formula 1. In 2024 Mercedes decided to further accelerate his path by making him skip Formula 3 completely and promoting him directly to Formula 2 with Prema, a very rare choice in the panorama of preparatory categories. After an initial period of adaptation, Antonelli took his first victory at Silverstone in the Sprint Race and, two weeks later, dominated the main race in Hungary, becoming the youngest driver to win multiple races in the history of the category.
He will end his first and only season in Formula 2 in sixth place, but it matters little because a few months later comes the moment that changes his career. On 30 August 2024 he made his debut in an official Formula 1 session during free practice for the Italian Grand Prix in Monza. It is a special debut that coincides with the announcement that everyone was waiting for: Mercedes chose him as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement starting from the 2025 season. He closed the 2025 championship in seventh place, achieved three podiums and demonstrated surprising maturity for a driver with his first experience in the top category.
2026 instead marks the transition from promise to absolute protagonist. After a second place in the inaugural race in Australia, Antonelli conquered his first pole position and his first victory in Formula 1 in China. A historic result that allows him to become the youngest poleman in the history of the category. A few weeks later he continues to break records, becoming the youngest driver ever to lead the Formula 1 World Championship standings.
Kimi Antonelli’s journey in Formula 1: all the victories and records of a predestined man
The 2026 Formula 1 season is confirming the talent of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, who in just a few races has already rewritten numerous records in the category. The Mercedes driver opened the year with a second place in Australia, but the turning point came immediately in China, where he won the first pole position of his career at 19 years, 6 months and 17 days, becoming the youngest poleman in history and surpassing Sebastian Vettel’s record which had stood since 2008. The following day also came his first victory in Formula 1, breaking an Italian fast that had lasted since the 2006 Malaysian GP with Giancarlo Fisichella.
From then on the pace becomes dominant: five consecutive victories in the first six races (China, Japan, Miami, Canada and Monaco), a streak achieved only by world champions such as Jim Clark, Jack Brabham, Nigel Mansell and Lewis Hamilton.
In the last race in Monaco he dominated completely with pole position and victory, making him the youngest driver ever to achieve both results in the Principality. With this success he also becomes the youngest driver in history to win the Monaco GP at 19 years, 9 months and 13 days, surpassing the previous record held by Lewis Hamilton, who in 2008 was 23 years, 4 months and 18 days.
Antonelli is the third Italian driver to win in Monaco after Riccardo Patrese in 1982 and Jarno Trulli in 2004, and also becomes the youngest driver in the history of Formula 1 to achieve a Grand Slam, i.e. pole position, victory, fastest lap and race conducted entirely in the lead, overcoming the previous record of Max Verstappen in 2021. Only a small elite of 28 drivers in history have managed to complete this performance.
With this result, the Italian driver also consolidates his leadership in the championship with a 66-point advantage after the sixth round, a margin that represents one of the largest ever in the initial stages of the season. The previous record belonged to Sebastian Vettel, who in 2011 was 58 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
At 19 years and 216 days, the Mercedes driver became the youngest world championship leader in the history of Formula 1, taking the record from Lewis Hamilton, who achieved it at 22 years and 157 days. He is also the first driver in the history of the category to achieve a combination of pole position, victory and fastest lap in his first two career victories.
In his first full year in Formula 1 he also set the points record for a rookie, finishing the season with 150 points. After Canada he also became the first driver in history to win his first four consecutive Grands Prix, and equaled one of the longest winning streaks in the modern era of Formula 1.
No driver before Antonelli had managed to win at least two Grands Prix before the age of twenty. Antonelli, on the other hand, managed to do it even earlier, and moreover consecutively, entering an extremely small group together with Lewis Hamilton in 2007 and Charles Leclerc in 2019.
The 2026 season is also intertwined with a series of long interrupted fasts for Italian motorsport. Before Antonelli, the last Italian to lead the World Championship was Giancarlo Fisichella in 2005, while to find an Italian permanently in command halfway through the season you have to go back to the eighties, with Elio De Angelis and Michele Alboreto. With his consecutive victories, Antonelli also brought Italy back to a statistic that had been missing for over 70 years: two successes in a row in Formula 1, a feat that only Alberto Ascari had managed to achieve between 1952 and 1953.
So far, in his young career in Formula 1, Antonelli has contested 30 Grands Prix, with 5 victories, 4 pole positions and 9 podiums, totaling 306 points.
