Mercedes boss Toto Wolff praised Kimi Antonelli’s “unbelievable” performance at the Monaco Grand Prix, which he won from pole and secured his first Formula 1 grand slam after leading every lap of the race and securing the fastest lap.
Mercedes’ dominance has been plain to see this season, with the Silver Arrows winning every grand prix so far in 2026 with drivers Antonelli and George Russell. However, it was expected to face a stern challenge from Ferrari on the streets of Monaco.
This challenge never materialised, and Antonelli won the grand prix from pole position on Sunday. Wolff himself admitted that the team was “surprised” by the young Italian’s speed on Sunday, which saw him rack up a 30-second lead before the safety car came out following Lance Stroll’s crash.
“We were surprised ourselves about that speed,” Wolff said after the Monaco GP. “He was, you know, the laps he was pulling in the times, they were two seconds faster than the McLarens, and a solid plus one second faster than Ferrari. And it was like clockwork. Why that is on a track that we would have not considered to be our strengths before the weekend, I don't know.”
Despite the shock of his speed on Sunday, Antonelli’s dominance on race day shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, as he put on an “unbelievable” show in qualifying on the previous day to secure his fourth pole position in F1.
"In Monaco, even more than on many other circuits, you need to be one with the car and really in the zone,” Wolff added.
“That's also why on George's side, once you lose that confidence, it's very difficult to be fast here. And as for Kimi, we saw in Q2 he was very good already, and then when we went into the last session, I thought, this is going to be impossible.
“Because seeing Charles [Leclerc] flying into the swimming pool section, that is the fastest I've seen a car coming in there and on the limit sideways. And then Max [Verstappen] topped it.
“We were tracing Kimi's lap, we have the live GPS, and it looked like he was just not going to make it, and then out of nowhere, in the last two corners, he made the difference and he was on pole, and looking at the onboard afterwards, it was unbelievable, it was unbelievable that lap.”
The performance over the weekend saw Antonelli secure his first grand slam in F1, setting a new record for the youngest driver to do so at just 19 years, nine months and 13 days old. He eclipsed the previous record set by Max Verstappen by almost four years.
As a result, he now leads the standings by 66 points over second-place Lewis Hamilton and has a 68-point lead over team-mate Russell – who was widely regarded as his closest rival for the 2026 crown.
The mountain Russell now has to climb follows a spate of bad luck that saw him retire in Montreal and he was hit with a drive-through penalty in Monaco after his team failed to serve a previous penalty.
Despite the chasm, Wolff remains confident in the Briton’s ability to keep the fight rolling on between the Mercedes pair.
“Luck swings in your direction, and then sometimes it doesn't,” he added. “And it's not a question of not knowing how to drive, it's about having a car underneath that you feel confident with, and that you can go fast. And that's the fact.
“Formula 1 is about physics and not mystics. You don't unlearn how to drive, and you don't become a miracle wonder driver [suddenly]. I'm not stressed at all for his performances, because we know he's one of the best.”
