Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli made Formula 1 history in Miami on Friday as he grabbed pole position for the Sprint and in doing so became the sport’s youngest ever pole position holder in any format.

Anthony Davidson believes it was Mercedes’ response to the teenager’s huge crash in his first official F1 outing in FP1 at Monza last year that turned a dramatic moment into a positive for his F1 future.

The Monza crash was ‘good’ for Kimi Antonelli, says Davidson

Antonelli will line up on pole position at the Miami Autodrome on Saturday having pipped Oscar Piastri to P1 by 0.045s, his attacking approach to Turn 17 on his all-important final lap setting him up for a historic pole.

His story, though, began long before that with the Italian signed to Mercedes’ junior driver programme when he was just 13.

Dominating the junior ranks with one title after another, he skipped Formula 3 after his 2023 Formula Regional European Championship victory, jumping straight into Formula 2 with Prema.

He dovetailed his Formula 2 duties with an extension TPC [Testing of Previous Car] programme, one that Toto Wolff revealed saw him clock over 9,000km in a Mercedes F1 car. His Mercedes commitments meant he also covered the team’s young driver outings in F1 2024.

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His first FP1, though, didn’t go to plan.

Climbing into George Russell’s car in FP1 at Monza, all eyes were on Antonelli who blasted his way out of the pit lane to go P1 on his very first lap. He was even quicker on his second lap before he lost control of the W15 through Parabolic and suffered a huge 52G crash.

Mercedes were quick to give the Italian a pat on the back – no condemnation, just support. And less than 24 hours later, they confirmed him as Lewis Hamilton’s replacement for the F1 2025 championship.

“He’s a rookie, he’s very young, we are prepared to invest in his future,” said Wolff in the immediate aftermath of Antonelli’s accident. “These moments, they will happen and they will continue to happen next year, but there will also be a lot of highlights.

“I think what we’ve seen was we rather have a problem with slowing him down rather than making him faster, because from what we’ve seen from one and a half laps is astonishing.”

Antonelli also acknowledged that instead of attacking from the very first lap of a weekend, he “should have built the run a bit more progressively”. Mercedes

That wasn’t Antonelli’s only crash last year, according to former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya.

“The rumours of what I’ve heard,” he told the AS Colombia YouTube channel, “is that he has crashed a lot in tests, he has done a lot of damage. He has done a lot of [damage] because he wants to go too fast.”

Fast, though, is exactly what he was around the Miami Autodrome on Friday evening as he posted a 1:26.482 in Sprint qualifying to claim his maiden pole position.

Applauding the Italian, former F1 driver turned Sky F1 pundit Davidson reckons even that headline-grabbing Monza crash played a role in Friday’s success.

“Everyone in the team was excited in Kimi’s potential and it shows the team knows what they are looking at for future drivers,” said the Briton.

“It was a difficult process to go through to fill the legend of Lewis Hamilton, who had been with the team for so long.

“I feel like the team are really nurturing him. He’s in the spotlight in a big team, right at the sharp end, and that’s not easy, so you need a lot of support from the team.

“Yes, he had a moment in Monza, but I think that was good in many ways, because it showed what could happen if you were left at your own devices, and the team reacted really well after that one.”

At 18 years and 250 days, Antonelli has shattered Sebastian Vettel’s previous record of the youngest pole-sitter in F1 with the German 21 at the time of his first pole.

It was also the first time that he’d outqualified his team-mate Russell.

“I didn’t expect that. That was unbelievable. To put it on pole position for the Sprint is a special moment in his time,” said 2009 F1 World Champion Jenson Button.

“We saw him with the incident in Monza [when he crashed] and that’s what I thought of Kimi Antonelli – unbelievably quick but on the edge.

“But this season he’s been completely different to that driver. He’s calm, collected, going about his business, slowly progressing, always there as well, getting points in every race.

“That’s not what you do as a new driver. His consistency has blown my mind but he’s gone ‘boom’ and given us the speed as well.”

Antonelli will be looking to follow up his Sprint pole with a victory, but even if he does, he won’t grab the record for the youngest race winner as he needed to achieve that in his first three races to beat Max Verstappen’s record.

“Tremendous. What an effort from such a young driver,” added Martin Brundle.

“He has no experience of Miami other than on the simulator and has gone out and smashed a lap in. That’s an outstanding effort.

“Mercedes saw him many years ago, they nurtured him, they cared for him, protected him when he smashed the car to bits in Monza in practice and here he is delivering for them. That’s sensational.”

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