Andrea Kimi Antonelli heads into the summer break as the favourite for the title. After recovering from his Formula 1 mid-season slump in 2025, he came back stronger and quicker in 2026.
The Mercedes driver is only in his second year in F1, but has already had his fair share of ups and downs during his time at the pinnacle of motorsport. He began his rookie run in 2025 with the responsibility of filling the massive gap left by the seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes.
The Italian hit the ground running in Melbourne with a fourth-place finish. This was followed by finishing in the top ten for another two races. Bahrain saw the rookie narrowly miss out on points with a P11, before he bounced back with two more P6 finishes.
Soon, his journey became turbulent. A devastating retirement at his home race in Imola left the Italian in tears. Then came a P18 finish in Monaco, followed by another retirement in Barcelona. Antonelli found redemption around Montreal after the three-race drought, storming to his maiden podium with a P3 finish.
Unfortunately, the bright moment was not long-lived as another three-race slump hit. From then on, his maiden season brought highs and lows as he had mixed results. Several races left the rookie without points. Others saw him at the lower end of the top ten. Still, he showed flashes of brilliance with resilient performances and two more podium appearances in 2025.
Redemption after a mixed rookie year
After recharging at the end of the season, Antonelli came into 2026 flying. The Mercedes driver already demonstrated his strengths in Melbourne with a P2 finish before taking his first race victory at the Chinese GP. From then on, he has looked mostly brilliant with fast pace and strong performances.
There were doubts about Antonelli’s confidence taking a hit after the mid-season slump last season, but the teenager resurged.
Speaking after the Hungarian GP about Antonelli bouncing back from the tough times, Mercedes Deputy Team Principal Bradley Lord said: “I think he’s found the method that worked for him in order to get the most from the team, understand the effort that is needed ahead of the weekend in order to arrive prepared, because track time is such a scarce and valuable commodity,”
“Particularly in a calendar where we’re seeing ever more Sprint races. And therefore it’s an FP1, and then you’re straight into a timed, competitive session as such, rather than a free practice session.
“So it was a really useful reset around sort of Baku time [in 2025] for him to really double down. Redouble his efforts with Bono [Peter Bonnington], with the rest of the team around him, with the regularity of the visits to the sim and the intensity and depth of the work there. For him to see that the opportunity that was there for him to grab and to take. And so, he’s taken that with both hands.”
Lord deems Antonelli “incredibly impressive”
Kicking off the 2026 season with a set of superb performances put Antonelli as the driver to beat going into the summer break. He finds himself on top of the Drivers’ Standings with 219 points and a 50-point lead over second. At the time of his slump, the teenager appeared distraught. However, it seems he has turned the lessons and misfortunes he has endured into strength.
“I’ve been asked a few times if we are surprised [by his performance]. I guess no and yes is the answer, in that we signed Kimi and we took the decision to bring Kimi into the team because we believed in his potential.” Lord continued.
“But I think it’s also undeniable that, to see a driver in just his second season in Formula 1 performing with so much consistency and with a real sort of calm maturity is incredibly impressive.
“It seems like he, through that difficult first season, it sort of happened in thirds, didn’t it? A strong start, a difficult middle, and then working out what he needed to work out of that slump and into the strong races at the end of the year.
“It’s almost like he managed to do multiple seasons’ worth of learning in one. Then that’s all consolidated over the winter. And I’m sure there’s also, to some extent, the reset factor of new regulations. That means every driver is on a steep learning curve with new cars and new power units.
“That seems, over the field I think, to have seen almost a rebalancing between newer drivers in the sport and older drivers as well in the teams, where you can see those pairings.”
Self-belief and confidence in F1
The growth the Italian has experienced has not only been in driving but also on a personal level. While being fast on track is a priority, a driver’s mentality and attitude are part of what separates the good from the great. Jumping from one level to another that’s miles ahead can leave room for one’s confidence to decline if success isn’t immediate. Having the right support system becomes important as the level grows.
“Kimi’s obviously done and continues to do an incredible job, and you can just see his confidence and his self-confidence building from weekend to weekend, not in a way that he’s getting carried away with anything.” Lord said of Antonelli’s progress.
“His feet are very firmly on the ground and kept very firmly on the ground by his family and inside the team as well. But you can just see the self-belief growing, and that’s really, really impressive.”
Being thrown into the world of F1 at only 18-years-old would be daunting for anyone. It is a considerable chance, especially as Antonelli made the jump from Formula 3 to Formula 1. With millions of new eyes on him waiting to gauge his talent, the Mercedes team were careful about how to go about the change.
“We’ve been very careful and very judicious with how we’ve tried to support Kimi’s introduction to Formula 1,” Lord explained.
“It’s a huge step for any driver, particularly with the expectation that comes with driving with a Mercedes, and so helping him not be overworked and overloaded with the marketing commitments or PR stuff at the track and other events, but managing that in as smooth a way as possible.”
Mercedes on the approach to F1
The Deputy Team Principal continued to explain their approach with young new drivers: “We often say to the drivers, “Look, we can’t make you faster with this stuff, but, if we get it wrong, we can definitely slow you down’.
“So making sure we haven’t been doing anything that can potentially slow him down, helping him understand how to navigate those things that can be distracting in the smoothest way possible. But always, every single person in the team, whether they’re in the comms team, marketing, commercial, or engineering, the priority is performance, and the priority is lap time, and that always comes first.”
“Now, Formula 1 – it’s a broader thing than just doing the engineering. That’s a luxury that you have in junior formulae, but Formula 1 brings other demands as well. Our job is to help him to balance that.
“It’s worth saying as well that he not only sets very high standards for himself, but his dad and his family expect the very best from Kimi too. Obviously there’s an amazing relationship with Bono and with the team. The car crew around Bono that has been really, really important for Kimi’s growth and development, and just that building of that bond of trust.”
Adaptability to new regulations
The Italian has been delivering weekend after weekend. The progress he has made since 2025 is clearly evident in his driving. Still, with F1 taking on regulation changes, the drivers have had to adapt.
Speaking on the challenge this brings to George Russell and Antonelli, Lord said:
“I don’t think either of the drivers has been set in their ways or anything other than completely open-minded about how to get the best out of these cars. We know that the ability to adapt and to be agile and versatile is always a key strength of any top driver, and both Kimi and George have that ability and capability as well.
“I think these are cars where this is a formula where you can get a little bit lost sometimes in some of the complexities of it. And we have certainly seen that at different points. The input and the advice has been just to keep it simple, concentrate on the driving, getting the tyres in the right place, doing the bits that every racing driver always needs to do well, and the systems then do the learning they need to do and support and deliver in an optimal way as well.
“Obviously, when things aren’t quite working right, that can get pretty complex and pretty complicated. But I think Kimi’s been able to strip away a lot of the noise, actually, and really focus on the essentials, focus on the core parts of what he needs to do. And then that creates the space for the engineers to focus on the setup and the optimisation of all the other systems as well. So it’s been a really, really good balance of effort between those different things.”
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