An undeniable highlight of this Formula One season, marked by discontent at the new regulations, has been getting swept along by the sheer joy that the world champion-in-waiting, Kimi Antonelli, has displayed on his way to a title he will almost surely secure this weekend at the Mexican Grand Prix. Antonelli was still a teenager for the first half of the year and it seemed fitting to describe him as such. His exuberant embrace of competing for Mercedes at the sharp end of F1 in just his second season was that of any 19-year-old.
Like discovering a life-changing new band or how much fun can be had with a cold beer, a wide grin was barely off his face. He is 20 now, still but a stripling and on Sunday at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez if he finishes in ninth place or better he will be F1’s youngest world champion, and the first Italian to win the title since Alberto Ascari in 1953. Antonelli has confessed that as a four-year-old he did not recall when Sebastian Vettel became the previous youngest title winner in 2010.
This weekend he will likely embrace an unforgettable moment. Antonelli has shone on track, at home with the complex requirements of the new energy-managed cars, extracting a pace and control such that even his more experienced Mercedes teammate George Russell has been left flailing in his wake. To which traits he has allied a sharp and incisive driving style that has been extraordinary at times and a judgment that has belied his years.
That he has done so with such alacrity, especially after a difficult rookie season last year, has surprised many. Not least those team principal Toto Wolff pointedly observed had been questioning whether Antonelli should even be in F1 after his debut season. Doubts now assuredly consigned to the dustbin of history, in the city where Leon Trotsky, who coined the phrase, was killed in 1940.
It has been clear how much the Italian loves what he does and how that has informed his performances. At his shoulder through the trials of last season and the triumphs of this, has been Peter Bonnington. Bono, as he is known, was Lewis Hamilton’s engineer across the British driver’s six titles with Mercedes.
He and Antonelli have established a close relationship, a friendship, with the Italian taking on board his colleague’s experience and cool head, often referencing him and the importance of their interaction. During Antonelli’s run of five successive victories in the opening period of the season, the last of them was a striking performance in Monaco. Taking an exceptional pole position to deny Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who was in fearsome form on the streets of the principality, he then delivered a remarkable race win, including seeing off two restarts.
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