Racing
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Kimi Antonelli says it is unfair to compare him with Ayrton Senna, even as the Mercedes driver’s five-race surge has turned him into the early leader of the 2026 Formula 1 championship.
Ahead of the Barcelona weekend, Antonelli dismissed the idea outright when asked if those comments added pressure. He said he had not read the comparisons and “don’t really also like the comparison because I don’t feel like I should be compared to someone who has made the history of the sport and I haven’t done not even a single bit of what he has been able to achieve.”
Antonelli said Senna remains his “idol” and an inspiration, but argued that “it’s not really fair to get compared to him, especially at this stage of my career,” because “it’s just the beginning and there’s still so much to achieve, so much to do and so much to improve.” He added that he feels he is “still very far from his level.”
The caution comes at a moment when Antonelli’s stock has risen sharply. He won five consecutive races across the opening seven rounds of the season and still leads the standings by 41 points over Lewis Hamilton, even after that margin narrowed when a reliability problem forced him out in Barcelona.
That form has drawn admiration from rival drivers, but not a rush to place him alongside the sport’s past greats. Max Verstappen, the Red Bull driver and four-time world champion, told media including RacingNews365 that Antonelli’s second-season level has been “very impressive.” Verstappen said, “In general, at that age to be doing what he is doing and trying to find that consistency as well, it’s very impressive.”
Verstappen said Antonelli’s rise is better understood as the product of his own development than as an echo of another champion’s career. “Comparisons, he mentioned it himself, it’s important also just to be yourself and not look at others or try to be like someone else,” Verstappen said. “Just be yourself.” He added that Antonelli “just needs to do everything his own way” because “it’s also very important just to be your own star.”
Inside Mercedes, that progress is being linked directly to what Antonelli learned during a much tougher rookie campaign in 2025. Team principal Toto Wolff said the Italian had been only 18 when he was “thrown into this monster called Formula 1” under intense scrutiny at a team capable of winning races, and that once the season returned to Europe the “avalanche of interest and requests” became “simply too much.”
Wolff said 2026 has been different because Antonelli now understands how the system works, what is required of him and what he needs to deliver his best performance. He added that Mercedes is trying to shield him from media and marketing duties “in the way we think is best to preserve him,” a sign of how carefully the team is managing the pressure around a young driver who has moved from prospect to title leader.