Kimi Antonelli shares the advice Lewis Hamilton has been giving him in the paddock during his debut Mercedes F1 season

Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli has made a very positive start to the 2025 Formula 1 season.

Very few rookies can claim to have got up to speed as fast as Kimi Antonelli after a P4 and P6 finish in Australia and China.

However, Lewis Hamilton is on that short list of drivers who have outperformed the 18-year-old Italian in his first two race weekends.

The Brit finished on the podium in each of his first nine Grand Prix and only missed out on winning the drivers’ championship in his debut season by a single point to Kimi Raikkonen.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff put his trust in Antonelli as soon as Hamilton announced he would be joining Ferrari this season.

Antonelli is dealing with the pressure of replacing Hamilton, and while he hasn’t lived up to the nearly impossible standards he set for rookies in 2007, Wolff is delighted with how his new recruit is performing.

The 18-year-old has now revealed that Hamilton has been giving him some advice during his first two race weekends.

READ MORE: Know all about 2025 Mercedes F1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli including stats

Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli reveals the advice Lewis Hamilton has given him

Antonelli was being interviewed on The Fast and The Curious Podcast and asked about his predecessor.

The teenager was asked if he had been in contact with the seven-time world champion and replied: “Apparently, he wrote a really nice message in the driver’s room.

“I cannot really see this message until Imola because it’s in this engineer’s building, which is brought only to the European races.

“So, basically, in this engineer building, we also have the driver’s room, and he apparently wrote a really nice message there. So I’m really looking forward to reading it in Imola.

“But other than that, you know, he’s been trying to say to enjoy and not really worrying about the rest, especially the outside and just enjoy the driving and the result will come.”

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Andrea Kimi Antonelli previews ‘scary’ Japanese Grand Prix Suzuka circuit

Antonelli is going to be learning at every race weekend this season and will be driving for the first time at plenty of circuits this year.

Suzuka is one of those tracks after he missed out on a Super Formula test at the end of last year due to illness.

Antonelli has described one section of the Suzuka circuit as ‘scary’ having driven it on Mercedes’ simulator in preparation for Sunday’s race.

Mercedes have been thoroughly impressed with Antonelli, and the speed at which he’s got up to speed.

His results have been slightly fortunate after spinning in Australia and benefiting from Hamilton’s disqualification in China, as well as Charles Leclerc’s.

However, as the rest of the rookies have proved, you have to put yourself in the right positions to be lucky, and making sure he secured eighth-place across the line in Shanghai with a damaged floor to earn a promotion to P6 was the most important aspect of that race.