Kimi Antonelli has been the standout rookie of the 2025 Formula 1 season so far. The Mercedes prodigy has hugely impressed in his opening two races.
The Italian finished an incredible P4 on his F1 debut at the Australian Grand Prix. It marked a great comeback after he was knocked out in Q1 and lined up 16th for the race.
Damon Hill praised Antonelli for his performance as he climbed through the field in the tricky conditions to grab 12 points on debut.
He kept the streak going at the Chinese Grand Prix as he finished eighth, leaving him fifth in the drivers’ championship after his first two races.
| Position | Drivers’ Championship | Points |
| 1 |
Lando Norris |
44 |
| 2 |
Max Verstappen |
36 |
| 3 |
George Russell |
35 |
| 4 |
Oscar Piastri |
34 |
| 5 |
Andrea Kimi Antonelli |
22 |
| 6 |
Alexander Albon |
16 |
| 7 |
Esteban Ocon |
10 |
| 8 |
Lance Stroll |
10 |
| 9 |
Lewis Hamilton |
9 |
| 10 |
Charles Leclerc |
8 |
However, it has not been as smooth as it could be for Antonelli. The Mercedes driver picked up floor damage on lap one in Shanghai after running over Charles Leclerc’s broken wing – it was the reason why he suffered a Q1 elimination in Melbourne.
But despite the issue costing him, Mercedes have spotted encouraging signs from the Italian after looking at his data from China.
Kimi Antonelli’s data showed he should have been fighting Ferrari and Max Verstappen at Chinese GP
The 18-year-old’s potential in F1 has already been made clear with his performances in the first two races. Martin Brundle has changed his mind about Antonelli after previously thinking Mercedes would be a ‘one-horse team’ with George Russell leading the way.
This has been disproved by Antonelli’s data in Shanghai, as Andrew Shovlin pointed out. The Mercedes trackside engineering director shared that the Italian should have been fighting with Ferrari and Max Verstappen had he not lost ‘two to three tenths’ with his floor damage.
“To make that estimation, we can look at the aero data and we could see that we lost something of the order of two to three tenths of a second worth of downforce,” said Shovlin via the Mercedes YouTube channel.
“But then the other problem was it’s not evenly distributed across the car. You’d have hard Kimi come on the radio relatively early on and say to Bono: ‘I’ve got no rear grip mate.’
“And what he meant there is that more of the downforce was missing from the rear axle. That causes the rear tyres to slide, they get hot, they lose grip. And he was battling a bit with that through most of the race.
“It was frustrating because I think from the pace we’d seen from Kimi this weekend, he should have been fighting with Ferraris, with Max. It would have been great to see him up there.
“And it’s also great for his learning as an F1 driver to be racing at the front.”
READ MORE: Know all about 2025 Mercedes F1 driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli including stats
Kimi Antonelli must take Valtteri Bottas’ warning on board to extract the best out of his Mercedes car
It is quickly becoming apparent that Antonelli is one of the most aggressive drivers on the grid in 2025. The 18-year-old does not shy away from hitting the curb hard on corner entry and making some daring overtakes.
Some of his moves in Melbourne caught fans’ attention in the wet weather conditions. But Antonelli was fortunate not to find the barriers in the early stages after he dipped a wheel on the grass at turn four and spun.
Rookies Isack Hadjar, Liam Lawson, Jack Doohan and Gabriel Bortoleto all crashed out during the race. Valtteri Bottas warned Antonelli was ‘lucky’ with his spin – on another day, he could have joined them.
Furthermore, while Antonelli’s data was encouraging in Shanghai, he was ultimately hampered by floor damage. Two races in and he has suffered the same issue in both Grand Prix.
Antonelli must avoid further floor damage if he is to extract the best from his W16. The Italian could have scored more points had he been slightly more cautious.
