Kimi Antonelli: From Karting Champion to Mercedes Race Winner

Kimi Antonelli is an Italian driver who went from European karting champion to Formula One race winner in a few short seasons. Still a teenager when he reached the grid, he has since set records as the youngest polesitter and the youngest World Drivers' Championship leader in the sport's history. His route ran through Formula 4, Formula Regional and Formula 2 before Mercedes gave him a seat.

How did Kimi Antonelli start in karting?

Antonelli began kart racing at five, guided by his father Marco, a sportscar driver. He joined the Mercedes Junior Team at 12 and became the youngest senior European Champion in karting history as a rookie, two weeks after his 14th birthday.

Born in Bologna on 25 August 2006, Antonelli was introduced to kart racing by his father, the sportscar racer behind AKM Motorsport in San Marino. He began driving at Galliano Park near Forli at the age of five. After a summer camp run by the Automobile Club d'Italia in 2014, the Minardi Management agency signed him, and in 2015 he moved to the Birel ART Easykart series, where he won the Trofeo Italia in the 60 cc class.

In 2018 he raced for Energy Corse in the mini classes and won the WSK Champions Cup, the South Garda Winter Cup and the ROK Cup International Final. Mercedes announced him as a Junior Team member in April 2019, when he was 12. That year he won six international OK-Junior titles and his first Italian Championship, and he finished runner-up at the SKUSA SuperNationals in the United States.

The move into senior karts came in 2020, when he joined Kart Republic in the OK class. As a rookie he won the WSK Euro Series, the Italian Championship and the European title, the last of these two weeks after his 14th birthday. He retired from the World Championship final at Portimao after a wet-weather collision with a stationary kart, which left him with a broken left tibia and a metatarsus injury. The Commission Internationale de Karting named him its Rookie of the Year.

He returned in 2021 still affected by the leg injury, which made braking difficult in the KZ gearbox class. He finished 15th in the KZ World Championship despite taking pole for the heats, and he defended his OK European title with five wins from eight rounds.

Karting titles, Formula 2 wins and a run of record-breaking Grand Prix victories for Mercedes.

What did Antonelli win in junior formulae?

Antonelli won the 2022 Italian F4 Championship with 13 wins and the German ADAC F4 title with a race to spare. He then took a gold medal for Italy at the FIA Motorsport Games, and in 2023 he won the Middle East and European Formula Regional championships.

Antonelli made his single-seater debut in the 2021 Italian F4 Championship at the Red Bull Ring, three weeks after turning 15, driving for Prema. He finished ninth on debut. Having contested three of the seven rounds, he finished tenth overall and fourth in the rookie standings with four wins in the category.

The 2022 season delivered his first major titles. He took the Italian F4 crown after a run of six straight victories at Spa-Francorchamps and Vallelunga, and he ended the season on 13 wins, a rookie record at the time. In parallel he contested the ADAC F4 Championship, where he took every available win, pole and fastest lap at the Hockenheimring and clinched the title at the Nurburgring with a race to spare.

At the FIA Motorsport Games at Paul Ricard he qualified on pole by more than half a second, then won both the qualifying and the main race with a broken left wrist, an injury sustained in a collision near the end of qualifying. The gold medal also helped Italy top the overall medal table. Across 57 Formula 4 starts he recorded 26 wins, 24 poles and 37 podiums, making him the second most successful driver in the category's history.

Formula Regional and Formula 2 progress

The 2023 season brought two Formula Regional titles in one year. He first claimed the Middle East Championship with Mumbai Falcons, winning the title with a race to spare after taking a 37-point lead over Taylor Barnard into the final round at Yas Marina. He then moved to the European Championship with Prema, where he won five races, scored 11 podiums and took four poles, finishing 39 points ahead of Martinius Stenshorne.

At Zandvoort he won the second race in mixed weather by more than 12 seconds after starting eighth, and that result clinched the European title. It made him the first European driver to win two F3-level championships in one year since Alain Prost in 1979. He dedicated the title to Dilano van 't Hoff, who had died in a crash at Spa-Francorchamps earlier in the season, and the team principals voted him driver of the season.

Antonelli skipped Formula 3 and moved directly to FIA Formula 2 in 2024, again with Prema and alongside Ferrari Driver Academy member Oliver Bearman. The team struggled to adapt to the ground-effect regulations, and he sat ninth in the standings at mid-season. His first win came in his eighth round, the rain-affected Silverstone sprint, which was shaped by three safety cars and a red flag. He then took his first feature victory from seventh on the grid at Budapest.

He missed a maiden pole by seventeen-thousandths of a second at Baku and finished third in the feature there after contact with Zane Maloney. A ten-place grid penalty at Monza, linked to Prema's use of dry ice as a coolant, and several collisions added to the difficulty of the year. He still finished sixth in the championship on 113 points, with two wins and three podiums, 38 points ahead of Bearman in 12th.

How did Antonelli's Formula One debut go?

Antonelli debuted for Mercedes at the 2025 Australian Grand Prix, aged 18 years and 203 days, replacing Lewis Hamilton alongside George Russell. He qualified sixteenth and climbed to fourth in the rain-affected race, becoming the second-youngest points scorer in Formula One history.

His testing with Mercedes began in April 2024, when he drove the W12 for two days at the Red Bull Ring, and he later completed private tests in the W13 at Imola, Silverstone, Barcelona-Catalunya and Spa-Francorchamps. His free practice debut came at the 2024 Italian Grand Prix in George Russell's W15. He set the fastest lap of the session, but spun at Curva Alboreto ten minutes in and struck the tyre barrier at 52 g, which ended his running.

Mercedes signed him for 2025 on a one-year contract. In Japan he qualified and finished sixth, becoming the youngest to both lead a race and set a fastest lap. Canada brought his first podium, third place, which made him the third-youngest podium finisher in Formula One history.

The second half of 2025 brought mixed results. He finished second in the Sao Paulo Grand Prix after holding off Max Verstappen in the closing laps, and he claimed another podium in Las Vegas after two disqualifications moved him up. His home race at Monza brought a penalty and a slow start, and Toto Wolff described the performance as underwhelming. He closed the season 15th in Abu Dhabi and was kept on by Mercedes for 2026.

What happened in his 2026 title campaign?

Antonelli won the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix from pole and had eight race wins by the Singapore Grand Prix. He became the youngest World Drivers' Championship leader in Japan, and his lead reached 84 points after Bahrain.

Mercedes emerged as the leading team of the new regulation era. Antonelli opened the season with second place behind George Russell in Australia, a 1-2 finish for the team after Ferrari's strategy went wrong. In China he took pole, became the youngest polesitter in Formula One history and eclipsed Sebastian Vettel's record by nearly two years. He held off an early Ferrari challenge and won by five seconds from Russell, which also made him the second-youngest Grand Prix winner and the first Italian victor in two decades.

A slow start in Japan dropped him from pole to sixth, but a well-timed safety car let him move up to the lead. He pulled 13 seconds clear of Oscar Piastri and won, taking the championship lead for the first time. At Miami he finished sixth in the sprint, then held off Lando Norris to win the Grand Prix. Canada followed as his fourth consecutive win, helped by several excursions from both Mercedes drivers and an engine failure for Russell.

Monaco brought the most striking result of the year. Antonelli set a statement lap to take pole from Max Verstappen, then dominated the race to become the youngest driver to score a grand chelem and to win at Monaco, with Russell out of the points. His run of five consecutive victories, the most from a maiden win in the sport's history, ended in Barcelona when an engine failed just after he had passed Russell for second.

A mistake-laden weekend in Austria brought third place and reduced his lead to 25 points. He then won from pole at Belgium, held off Charles Leclerc and gained ground on Russell after a collision between Russell and Lewis Hamilton. Hungary brought third and the Netherlands second, both ahead of Russell, and his lead grew to 59 points before the Italian Grand Prix.

At his home race in Italy, Mercedes gave him a new power unit at the cost of a heavy grid penalty, so he started 19th. He climbed to the lead trio by lap 13, then gained more than 15 seconds in 21 laps to pass Russell. It made him the first Italian winner of the home race in 60 years, and it came from the second-lowest winning grid position in the sport's history.

He won the first Spanish Grand Prix at the Madring circuit in Madrid. In Azerbaijan he lost out in qualifying, started 16th and survived two safety car restarts to finish fifth. In Bahrain he started third, briefly led and then lost out to pole-sitter Verstappen, but Russell's late retirement let him extend his championship lead from 66 to 84 points.

What records has Antonelli set?

Antonelli holds several Formula One records, including youngest polesitter, youngest World Drivers' Championship leader and youngest driver to score a grand chelem. By the 2026 Singapore Grand Prix he had eight race wins, six pole positions, ten fastest laps and sixteen podiums.

• Youngest polesitter in Formula One history, China 2026
• Youngest World Drivers' Championship leader, Japan 2026
• Japan 2025: youngest to lead a race, and to post a fastest lap
• Monaco 2026: pole, win and grand chelem, all at the youngest age on record
• Youngest-ever sprint winner, 2026
• Five consecutive wins from a maiden win, the most in the sport's history

Every record on the list was set in his first two Formula One seasons, 2025 and 2026, which shows how quickly his results moved from debut-year promise to championship contention.

Career summary