Antonelli - the boy 'born in a garage' who started driving on dad's lap
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- Kimi Antonelli is in his second F1 season at 19, described by the source as "dominating this year's F1 championship," though Wolff conceded there was "a spell of nine races that was really not good"
- Marco Antonelli first recognised his son's talent at Adria circuit when 10-year-old Kimi controlled oversteer at 320km/h in a Lamborghini from his father's lap, concluding: "maybe he has something special"
- Toto Wolff chose Antonelli to replace Lewis Hamilton after Hamilton announced his Ferrari move in late January 2024, phoning Marco to say: "We put Kimi in Formula 1. What do you think?"
- Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' trackside engineering director, said Antonelli adapted to an F1 car faster than any debut driver he'd seen, comparing him favourably to George Russell
- At his first Monza appearance in 2024 practice, Antonelli set the fastest lap then crashed at Parabolica — Shovlin called it an "error of judgment," not a run-out-of-talent mistake
- A rear suspension design change mid-2025 unsettled the car; after a second Monza crash, Wolff told him: "You've got to turn this around. This is just not good enough" — yet said publicly he "never doubted" Antonelli's potential
Why it matters: Mercedes committed a generation-defining seat to an untested teenager when Lewis Hamilton's late-January 2024 Ferrari announcement forced their hand — and Wolff's public willingness to absorb a nine-race slump without benching him reveals how much modern F1 teams now bet on academy graduates rather than experienced replacements.
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