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Motorsport

Oleg Karpov

Who slept best last night: Kimi Antonelli

Kimi Antonelli Andrea Kimi Antonelli Charles Leclerc F1 Mercedes Toto Wolff Valtteri Bottas Barcelona Ferrari LAT Images

Remember Kimi Antonelli's Belgian Grand Prix last year?

Twelve months ago, he spun out in sprint qualifying, started last and finished 17th in the sprint, ahead of only Nico Hulkenberg's Sauber and the two Alpines (last year's Aston Martins). He then simply lacked pace in the main qualifying and was knocked out in Q1.

In the usual routine of an F1 weekend, drivers head straight to the media pen to explain themselves to the TV crews and written media. But Antonelli was the last driver to arrive, despite being one of the first to be eliminated. Blinking constantly, trying not to let more tears fall, he spoke about lacking confidence in the car and going through a difficult period - with Spa being just one of several tough weekends that summer. It was after that Belgian Grand Prix that the voices claiming Antonelli wasn't ready for Formula 1 grew the loudest.

Fast forward 12 months, and Antonelli looks like an unstoppable force.

He arrived at Spa after another rather difficult period. This time, though, it wasn't down to his own mistakes but mechanical failures. He lost a likely second-place finish in Barcelona and potentially a win at Silverstone. Yet even with those two non-scoring races, he came to Spa with a 25-point lead over George Russell.

The voices had changed too.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes (Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images)

During Thursday's press conference, Antonelli was asked to rate his season so far - with the question itself saying more about his campaign than the answer.

"Would you rate your own season as a 10 out of 10, being the humble and self-reflective driver we've got to know? If not 10 out of 10, why?" Antonelli was asked.

Antonelli is indeed humble and self-reflective. So he provided a full list of his imperfections: a crash in Melbourne practice, slow start in Japan, the Miami track limits penalty that cost him points in the sprint, and even qualifying sessions in Barcelona and Austria, where he was third and second respectively, which he still regarded as unsatisfactory.

Being humble and self-reflective, he still couldn't rate his season lower than an eight.

After Spa, he probably needs to raise it to at least an eight and a half. Because there wasn't much he could have done better at the circuit that delivered one of the lowest points of his career just a year ago.

There's that old cliche top athletes love to use - that there's no such thing as bad luck. It's usually brought up just before they proceed to list all the occasions when they were, in fact, unlucky. But what they really mean is that you can still make the difference regardless.

Antonelli's Spa weekend in isolation - as well as his season as a whole so far - is a perfect example of how ultimately nothing can stop the best performer.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing (Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images)

He was fastest on Friday, then took a comfortable pole - and something as trivial as a virtual safety car at the wrong moment couldn't really change anything. Valtteri Bottas unintentionally gave Antonelli a small helping hand while holding up Charles Leclerc, but the few tenths the Monegasque lost behind the Cadillac hardly justify the full-course dinner Bottas jokingly suggested Kimi owed him afterwards. At most, it was worth a good Belgian beer. A small one.

Antonelli simply wasn't going to lose that race. He used his first real opportunity to reclaim the lead that was rightfully his.

It's also worth noting that the victory was down to Antonelli himself. Yes, he's still driving the best car on the grid, but the race was much tougher than many expected. Ferrari - and even Red Bull at times - matched Kimi's pace. Not enough to become genuine threats, but certainly enough to keep him honest.

That victory required the Italian to be at the top of his game from start to finish - and it's fair to say the Antonelli of 2025 probably wouldn't even have been in contention for that win.

It's not just that Mercedes has the fastest car this year. It's the combination of the car and the driver that, more often than not, has been the benchmark. On pure pace, Antonelli could have won almost every race this season. He had enough speed to challenge Lewis Hamilton in Barcelona, he was ultimately the fastest driver on Sunday in Austria, and it would have been very difficult for Leclerc to keep him behind in the closing laps at Silverstone. With a little more luck, he could easily still be on a winning streak stretching back to China.

Instead, with bad luck choosing him more often than most, his championship lead is "just" 45 points.

Not bad for a 19-year-old.

Toto Wolff, Mercedes (Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images)

"We're all surprised," Toto Wolff said during his media session on Sunday evening about his driver. "I think the first season came as expected. Great moments where his talent shined through, and moments which were very difficult, the long spell of results, the lack of results in the middle of the season. And as expected.

"And then after the winter, also as expected - he knew the environment, he knew the pressures, he knew the demands of the team on the technical side, on the marketing side, knowing the tracks that we would go racing - [he improved]. But what was not expected is the serenity and structure that he brought into his game. With Kimi, whether the session was good or bad, you wouldn't see a difference in emotions in the debrief.

"It is absolutely transactional. 'What is the problem?', 'How do we solve it?', 'How do we move on?' - and that is new. And I think that's why, it's almost when he wins, you can't see this absolute excitement that a 19-year-old would almost have. And at the same time, [when] he fails to deliver results... In Barcelona, when we had the car stoppage, or even in Silverstone, he comes back in - and he was the one saying to the team, 'Well, this is a mechanical sport, these things can happen'. 19 years old! That is very, very impressive to see.

"And I think this mindset and this attitude is probably one of the main drivers that has allowed the talent to shine so early in his career."

What a difference a year makes.