Kimi Antonelli: How Mercedes driver’s popularity in Italy has surged amid his lead in the F1 title race | F1 News

Kimi Antonelli is not only adjusting to being a Formula 1 title contender, but also carrying the motorsport-mad nation of Italy’s hopes into the sporting summer.

The 19-year-old has defied pre-season expectations to establish a 20-point lead over his Mercedes team-mate George Russell at the top of the Drivers’ Championship with four of 22 rounds complete.

Antonelli claiming his third successive victory last time out in Miami despite Mercedes – unlike their rivals – holding back their first major upgrade package of the season for the next round in Canada, suggests that the Silver Arrows are well-placed to remain at the front of the field throughout the year.

Russell had been considered the clear favourite to carry Mercedes’ title hopes, but after winning the season-opener in Australia, the 28-year-old Brit has largely been outperformed by his far less experienced team-mate.

After Antonelli claimed the first two wins of his career in China and Japan, an enforced five-week gap – caused by the cancellations of races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – left plenty of time for hype to build, but perhaps the best performance yet of his young career in Miami has taken excitement around the teenager to another level.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has already expressed concern over his belief that Italy’s absence from this summer’s football World Cup is going to result in a stronger spotlight on Antonelli, along with tennis world No 1 Jannik Sinner, who will attempt to defend his Wimbledon title in July.

“The bigger ​problem is the Italian public,” Wolff said following Antonelli’s win in Miami. “Now that they are not qualified for the football, it’s all about Sinner and Antonelli. It’s ​the two who are superstars. And that’s something which we need to contain.

“There are so many requests for his time ​from the media, from sponsors. Now it’s on us to keep the handbrake on. The risk is that he is being carried away too quickly.”

Following Wolff’s comments, Sky Sports F1 spoke to Italian racing driver Vicky Piria, who has watched Antonelli’s rise closely as a pundit for Sky Sport Italia, to find out just how high excitement levels are in Italy ahead of an intense summer of action.

How has Italy reacted to Antonelli’s three wins?

Piria: It has gone wild! For the Italians who are within the industry, we could see it coming. Even with the hard moments last year, there was so much good to take in. So, I honestly saw it coming, but I didn’t see it coming this early within the championship.

It’s a lovely shock for those who are not so into F1 and have just started to get to know Kimi, who was presented to everyone as this little young boy, who had just got out of school a year earlier and is trying to make his way through this world.

Obviously, he has a lot of talent, because otherwise, he wouldn’t have been signed by Toto Wolff when he was 12. But I think no one saw this much coming.

It’s been phenomenal, it’s been great, and he’s really loved by the younger generation, but also, by the older generation, who are old enough to be his parents, or even grandparents!

Is he transcending beyond F1 fans in Italy?

Piria: Motorsport fandom in Italy is really different to how it is in the UK, because in the UK, you’ve got a lot of teams. You’ve got people supporting McLaren, Red Bull, Aston Martin, and then you’ve got people supporting Lando Norris, or George Russell, and Lewis Hamilton. A lot of British drivers, a lot of British-based teams.

I’ve always seen F1 fandom in the UK having a bit more variety in terms of how people support their favourites, but in Italy, it’s just Ferrari, people are obsessed with it.

When Enzo Ferrari said, ‘you ask a kid to draw a car, and they’ll draw it red.’ It is like that, and I think it’s always been very Ferrari-focused.

But already, it has sort of changed because with Ferrari obviously not winning, especially the younger generations, they start to look elsewhere. There were a lot of Max Verstappen’s fans in Italy last year.

The younger generation that didn’t see Michael Schumacher win his five titles, they support Ferrari but they’re a bit more open. But I think Kimi’s also got the older generations who have always been Ferrari fans, and they’re getting passionate about this kid and what he can do.

When people stop me on the street, they’re amazed and asking, ‘is he really that good? Is he really doing this?’ People still can’t believe it.

How does his popularity compare to Jannik Sinner’s?

Piria: If you watch Italian television, there is literally a commercial break featuring Jannik Sinner every 30 seconds.

It’s obviously early for Antonelli, Sinner has won Wimbledon and he’s number one in the world, but I’m pretty sure that if Kimi continues with this pace, it won’t take long for that to happen as well, especially with F1 being so popular right now. He is becoming a superstar.

An example of what I think people like about Kimi came during the five-week break we had before Miami, when he went to Imola to see the World Endurance Championship, and everybody saw that.

But the weekend after, I was racing in Imola in an Italian GT championship, and he came to watch because his dad runs one of the teams. And even though the circuit was full of people following him around, he’s still behaving like a normal kid.

But he’s not anymore. He can’t go karting, or he can’t go to watch his dad’s team race like he used to, and I think he’s facing that fact right now.

Is attention heightened by Italy missing the World Cup?

Piria: Not qualifying for the World Cup was such a disappointment for everyone, really terrible disappointment.

If you look at the summer, you’ve got something to look forward to and it’s not the World Cup, it’s F1 and tennis.

Italians become fans straight away. And if you think about MotoGP and seven-time world champion Valentino Rossi and that movement, it was phenomenal how quickly it grew.

The only difference is that if you compare MotoGP to F1, the addiction to Ferrari is far more significant than the fandom of Ducati.

Is Italy now expecting Antonelli to deliver a drivers’ title?

Piria: No one was talking about Kimi winning the title before the season started, even if everybody kind of knew Mercedes had the best car, especially for the first part of the championship.

If you had asked anyone in February who they thought was going to win the championship, they wouldn’t have said Kimi, they would have said George or Max, or Lando, or something like that.

Everything is very passionate in Italy, so often you love a team or you love a driver a lot, but then, when there are setbacks, Italians are really passionate about those too as well.

So the expectations are high. But I think Mercedes are doing a good job reminding everyone that this boy, this is only his second season, he skipped Formula 3, and he’s really young and really talented, but there’s a long way to go.

How will Antonelli’s support compare to Ferrari’s at Monza?

Piria: I would hope they support both, but I do remember that when Kimi crashed into Charles Leclerc at Zandvoort last year, he got a lot of criticism for that.

Ferrari is a religion, but I do think it will change, especially now he’s the championship leader. And I really see younger people really into him.

There’s always going to be some Ferrari fans who will maybe be a bit disappointed if Kimi is winning and they aren’t, but hopefully the newer generation fans will be way happier.

But it’s definitely a movement. When people stop you in a cafe to talk about F1 because they’ve seen you on television, normally, the question is, ‘when are Ferrari going to start winning again?’ And it’s pretty boring, because you never know what to answer.

Now the question is, ‘can Kimi really do it? He looks awesome.’ And I like that. It’s a different picture, and it just gets more fans involved.

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