There has been a lot of hype surrounding Andrea Kimi Antonelli, notably because he is the first 18-year-old to race in Formula 1 since Max Verstappen.
The spotlight was on Antonelli almost immediately after Lewis Hamilton announced he would be joining Ferrari, with talk turning to whether Mercedes would give him a Verstappen-style fast track to the top.
Mercedes has often been cautious about promoting talent too early, with Toto Wolff conscious of the amount of pressure and how overwhelming it can be, with Liam Lawson a case in point at Red Bull.
Having lasted two races, Red Bull’s Helmut Marko declared that Lawson had lost his confidence and decided to swap him for the most experienced Yuki Tsunoda.
The same thing could have happened to Antonelli, but the Mercedes driver has risen to the challenge in a difficult car. Discussing his debut race at Melbourne on the Fast and the Curious podcast, Antonelli explained his initial reaction to the unseen moment on the opening lap of the race.
Kimi Antonelli proves he is ready for F1 after impressive reaction to ‘massive moment’ in Australian GP
It was a tough debut for all the rookies in the Australian GP as the wet weather hit the track and generated an incredibly slippery track. Although there was not enough standing water for the full wet tyre, Intermediate tyres are still very difficult to maintain – especially as the track dries out.
Isack Hadjar and Jack Doohan both proved how difficult it was having spun on the painted lines, while Antonelli only just managed to save his Mercedes debut from turning into a disaster with an impressive save exiting Turn 5 moments before the Alpine driver hit the wall.
Antonelli reflected on the moment and his reaction in the immediate aftermath proved that he has what it takes to battle with some of F1’s greats.
“I didn’t really know how much I could push the car when on track with others and of course it was wet, so visibility was not good as well,” said Antonelli.
“Once I did the first few corners I was actually feeling ok, then I had a massive moment at T5 which is when I had to change my underwear. For a second I was facing the wall and I was full-opposite lock, and I was just hoping the car to be saved. It didn’t feel so nice in the car.”
“It happened so fast that I forgot immediately about it. Of course, I was thinking ‘Thank god it went back straight’ but straight away I was trying to get back into the rhythm because I was just so focused on trying to progress through the field. In the moment it felt really scary, like, really, really scary.”
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Where Kimi Antonelli differs from Liam Lawson
Antonelli received an extensive testing programme before his debut with Mercedes, with the team running him as part of the rules around the Testing of Previous Cars.
As a result he was able to get a feel for what the 2025 Mercedes would be like, enabling him to build on that experience during pre-season testing.
It showed in the first two race weekends, as Lawson had completed the least amount of laps out of all the rookies in pre-season testing and Red Bull did not run him in any old cars before the season.
Lawson felt confident enough after 11 races, but given how sensitive the current generation of cars are to car setup and Red Bull’s philosophy of adding more downforce conflicting with the mechanical elements of the RB21, it became an uphill struggle for the 23-year-old.
Ironically, Red Bull’s pursuit of peak aerodynamic efficiency goes against the ground rules set out by Adrian Newey, who left the team midway through last season. Getting back on top of things will be a challenge, and one that an experienced hand like Tsunoda is far more suited to than Lawson.
