RacingAndrea Kimi Antonelli can trace his Mercedes journey to one phone call. The 19-year-old Mercedes driver, now leading the Formula 1 World Championship, says Toto Wolff rang while he sat in the car with his father and confirmed a place in the team’s junior program. “I was in the car with my father when Toto phoned. On the spot I heard about joining the academy. It was a truly special moment,” Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes Formula 1 driver and current World Championship leader, said in a BBC interview.
That moment followed a family debate that started years earlier. Antonelli says his father, Marco, a former racing driver who still competes and runs his own team, tried to hold him back from the sport at first. “To be honest, at first he didn’t want me to race. Motorsports is wonderful, but it’s a very tough world,” Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes Formula 1 driver and current World Championship leader, said in a BBC interview.
The pull of the paddock was strong. Antonelli says he spent his childhood weekends at circuits as his father raced, and that is where he found his drive. “Very young I would go with my father to the race weekends at the circuit, and that’s where my passion grew,” Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes Formula 1 driver and current World Championship leader, said in a BBC interview. Over time, he says he convinced his father by showing how much he wanted it. “I think my dad saw that I was serious about it… I was the one who wanted to do it more,” Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes Formula 1 driver and current World Championship leader, said in a BBC interview. “From that, I think he understood that I would ultimately become a racing driver,” Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes Formula 1 driver and current World Championship leader, said in a BBC interview.
The break came from a name with deep roots in Italian racing. Antonelli credits the Minardi family for putting him on Toto Wolff’s radar. “Everything started thanks to the Minardi family. They told Toto Wolff about me,” Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes Formula 1 driver and current World Championship leader, said in a BBC interview. That, he says, sparked interest in Brackley. “That made Toto take an interest,” Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes Formula 1 driver and current World Championship leader, said in a BBC interview. Mercedes junior-program chief Gwen Lagrue then assessed him late in 2017, and the academy invitation followed, leading to Wolff’s call.
Before that leap, Italy’s karting heartlands shaped him. From South Garda Karting in Lonato to Adria, Sarno and La Conca, Antonelli learned race craft on tracks that turn raw speed into race-winning habits.
Now the early faith is showing up on Sundays. Antonelli has turned that foundation into results for Mercedes with wins at the China GP and the Japan GP, and he leads the F1 World Championship at 19. The path ran through a cautious father, a Minardi tip-off, a late-2017 evaluation by Mercedes, and a phone call that sealed his route to the top.