The boy 'born in a garage' who became F1 world champion at 20: the rise of Kimi Antonelli

Italy's Kimi Antonelli has become Formula 1 world champion at the age of just 20. Antonelli, who turned 20 only in August, dominated the sport in just his second season to become the youngest world champion in its history.

His father Marco says Kimi was "born in a garage". From 15 days old, Kimi was in the garage, hearing the sound of engines and smelling exhaust, while Marco and his wife Veronica worked on their racing team business.

It was the Christmas holidays when Kimi was about three, and Marco had brought home a racing simulator bought for guests at the Bologna Motor Show. Each evening Kimi wanted to drive, sitting on his father's lap with the controls divided between them. One night Marco, back early from work, fell asleep and failed to brake at the end of the straight, and they crashed. Kimi told him: "Dad, dad, no sleep, no sleep. I have to drive."

Marco was a driver himself. In the 1990s he was on the cusp of becoming a works driver in the DTM touring car series. He tested for Alfa Romeo, but the team boss left and the opportunity evaporated; another chance with BMW, alongside Roberto Ravaglia and Steve Soper, went the same way. Because of his own struggles, Marco was at first stressed about his son's passion for motorsport.

Kimi tried a go-kart for the first time at five, and immediately showed an awareness of racing lines, braking points and car control.

When Kimi was 10, at the Adria circuit in north-east Italy, Marco asked if he wanted to try his Lamborghini. The two strapped in together, Marco in charge of the throttle and brake and Kimi controlling the rest. Step by step they went faster, until at the braking point at the end of the straight, at 320km/h, the car had a lot of oversteer — and Kimi controlled it perfectly, changed gear and went. Watching the video, Marco said to himself that maybe his son had something special.

The Antonellis describe themselves as a normal family who could not possibly afford all the categories on the way to Formula 1. Marco decided he could fund Kimi through karting and a year of Formula 4, after which he might put him in one of his own GT cars to turn professional that way.

But whatever category Kimi entered, he was quick and he won. By the time he was 11, his name was buzzing around racing circles, and Mercedes driver academy scout Gwen Lagrue flew to Italy to check him out. That season Kimi was driving a kart with less power than his rivals, because Marco had told him to think not about the result but about improving. Lagrue was impressed, and once Kimi joined the Mercedes academy, Marco could stop worrying about money.

Four-time world champion Max Verstappen — the only other teenager to win an F1 race — has said that even in karting, Antonelli was clearly one of the stand-out talents.

At 15, as a final preparation for cars, Antonelli did a couple of races in a karting category with gears. On his debut, with minimal testing, he took pole position; at the world final he took pole again. At the end of 2021 he moved full-time into cars, swept the board in Formula 4 championships through 2022, and did the same in Formula Regional in 2023.

By then Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff was already thinking of Antonelli as a successor to Lewis Hamilton. In the 2023 contract talks Hamilton wanted at least two firm years and Wolff only one; they compromised on 2024 with an option for 2025. Hamilton, unimpressed, signed to join Ferrari in 2025 and told Wolff in late January 2024.

Wolff immediately phoned Marco with the news: "We put Kimi in Formula 1." Marco asked whether he was sure Kimi was ready. Antonelli had not even driven an F1 car at that point. Mercedes put together a testing programme of 20-odd days in cars a couple of years old at tracks all over the world to prepare him for his debut in 2025.

Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin says the engineers were impressed by how rapidly Antonelli got up to speed — within a couple of runs he would understand the car and be more or less on the limit — and by the fidelity of his car control. His mistakes, Shovlin says, were errors of judgement or lack of experience, not run-out-of-talent mistakes.

Antonelli got his first experience of an F1 weekend in first practice at his home race, the 2024 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. It was a spectacular debut for good and bad reasons: he set the fastest time on his first lap, then flew again, quicker than anyone up to that point. His full name is Andrea Kimi Antonelli; close friends and family call him Andrea, but in F1 he is universally known as Kimi.