Toto Wolff: How 11-year-old Kimi Antonelli impressed him back then

The master plan has paid off! Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff can now say this quite officially and with certainty. When Lewis Hamilton informed his long-standing team at the end of January 2024 that he would be moving to Ferrari, a young Italian – who wasn’t even of age at the time – was chosen as his successor: Kimi Antonelli.

Antonelli, having just turned 18, took part in his first free practice session at Monza in 2024. He kicked off his first season in Melbourne in 2025. The first year didn’t always go smoothly, and criticism of the decision to sign the young driver soon began to mount. But Antonelli and Wolff proved all the doubters wrong: just one year and seven months after his Grand Prix debut, Kimi Antonelli is now Formula 1 World Champion.

Antonelli knew what he wanted from an early age

Wolff and his team spotted Antonelli nine years ago, when Antonelli was eleven. What did the Austrian see in him back then? Wolff: “Of course, looking back, lots of things spring to mind. I think what impressed me at the time was that he was very strong-willed. Even as a young boy, he knew what he wanted.”

Wolff on his current protégé: “I didn’t know anything about karting back then – whether it was the European Championship or the WSK, I didn’t know. But when he moved up to F4, he won in his debut year. He won the regional championship in his debut year. And then there was that difficult year in F2 as well. But we had the data.”

Antonelli replaced Hamilton

And then, in early 2024, came the pivotal moment. Wolff: “So when Lewis told me, ‘I’m leaving’, it was clear to me in a way that he would be the successor.” And that’s how it turned out. The world championship title in his second season – very few have managed that (Hamilton, incidentally, being one of them).

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Wolff says that at Mercedes, they always believed in Antonelli and in the Silver Arrows’ return to championship glory: “Nobody ever doubted that it was the right decision. That is the enormous strength of this organisation. And I’m so proud that we’ve bounced back from those difficult moments and carried on, bounced back again and carried on.”

Wolff rallies himself and his team: “It’s not over yet. Because we’re still struggling a bit with the car at the moment. And we have to win the Constructors’ Championship. And next year, and the year after that…”