The Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, has paid tribute to Kimi Antonelli, who all but closed out his first Formula One world championship with a victory at the US Grand Prix that Wolff described as the Italian’s best race.
Wolff was at pains to point out the considerable efforts made by a number of other peoples in bringing the young Italian to having one hand on a record-breaking title.
After his victory at the Circuit of the Americas, Antonelli needs to finish ninth or better at the Mexican Grand Prix this weekend. He could even finish outside the points as long as he is in front of his teammate, George Russell, and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, the two other drivers in the running. If he seals the title in Mexico City he will become F1’s youngest world champion at 20 years old.
Antonelli led from pole position on Sunday with a controlled, dominant run largely at the front of the field, for his ninth success of the season.
“On Kimi’s side, the main headline is that [it is] for me the best race that he’s delivered,” Wolff said. “Getting off the start with the inferior tyre and then controlling it at all times. Exceptional. I think he’s outperformed the car.”
When asked if it matched Antonelli’s superb drive from 19th to victory at the Italian Grand Prix in September, Wolff acknowledged it was special, but that Austin was up there with that drive.
Antonelli concurred. “Monza was a super special one and one I will remember for ever,” he said. “But this one, probably in terms of execution, was better because the way we built the performance throughout the weekend was very good.”
Wolff believed it was all the more impressive given how difficult Antonelli’s rookie season had been in 2025 when at times he struggled with the car and made mistakes that caused some to question whether Mercedes had been correct to promote him to the team so soon.
Those are doubts he feels Antonelli has comprehensively silenced. “There are many people that said last year after nine races without points he shouldn’t be in a Mercedes,” Wolff said. “People in other teams that said he shouldn’t even be in Formula One.
“All of that now is extremely satisfying to see what he’s able to deliver, how he’s working with the team, with Bono [race engineer, Peter Bonnington] and yielding the results. But it wasn’t an easy road.
“It’s been 30 or more years that I’ve tried to understand racing drivers’ brains and I still don’t know what has happened over the winter. His ability to process and deliver something that’s outstanding, which we didn’t see coming.”
Mercedes took on Antonelli as part of their driver development programme when he was 12 years old and have supported him through karting and in the feeder series to F1.
Wolff was the driving force behind bringing Antonelli into the team to take Hamilton’s seat when the Briton left for Ferrari. Wolff was insistent he felt the youngster was ready to step up and he maintained that Antonelli’s success should not be viewed as having come from nowhere, but rather the product of many years and the input of many people.
“I wasn’t the one responsible for it,” Wolff said. “It was teamwork. It was our junior team around [the Mercedes driver development adviser] Gwen [Lagrue] that discovered him when he was 11.
“Credit to that group that have developed him over the many years. I read an interview [with the Ferrari vice-chair] Piero Ferrari last week where he said: ‘What a talent, he reminds me of Niki Lauda.’ And I’m thinking, people don’t get that this is the work of nine years.
“The development of nine years, the hardship over nine years, the integration of the team, the working with the engineers, millions in the development of his career, of his ability, of his character together with his parents. It’s just not that it landed like this.”
