Mercedes-AMG Petronas has chosen an 18-year-old Italian to succeed 7-time world champion Lewis Hamilton: Andrea Kimi Antonelli from Bologna will be alongside George Russell in the 2025 world championship. Born on August 25, 2006 and therefore just over 18, he will be the third youngest driver to debut in Formula 1 after Max Verstappen and Lance Stroll. Son of an artist, his father Marco Antonelli was a driver and now leads the AKM Motorsport team, Andrea Kimi has been a protagonist in several GT championships and in Italian Formula 4 and comes from the junior sector of the German team based in Brackley, in the United Kingdom. With him, an Italian returns to Formula 1 for the first time since 2021, when Antonio Giovinazzi was at Sauber Alfa Romeo.
“Our 2025 driver lineup combines experience, talent, youth and pure speed.“, commented Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, “we are excited about what George and Kimi can bring to the team, both as individual drivers and as a team. Our new team is the perfect place to start the next chapter in our history. It is also a testament to the strength of our junior programme and our belief in the talent that comes from our academy”. Antonelli, in fact, comes from FIA F2 and since 2019 has been part of the Mercedes Junior Team with which he graduated, as was the case for Russell.
In the past he started with fast karts and then he was a student of the ACI Sport Michele Alboreto Federal School, winning the 2021 federal supercourse. ‘Discovered’ by Giancarlo Minardi with his son Giovanni, he was champion of Italian F4, Adac F4 and European and Middle East Regional Formula and currently competes in the Formula 2 championship with Prema Racing. At just 16 years old, thanks to his successes in F4, he obtained the Fia Superlicense, mandatory to drive a Formula 1. Italy could therefore once again have a high-ranking driver, given the responsibility of succeeding a great champion like Lewis Hamilton, destined for Ferrari. Among the first to rejoice with the ACI Team Italia driver was the president of the Automobile Club d’Italia, Angelo Sticchi Damiani: “I have known Andrea for many years, even if he is only 18 and I am convinced that Italy can count on him, a very good driver, who allows us to fill the gap of Italian drivers in the Formula 1 World Championship that has lasted three seasons now. We are happy for him, he is also a guy with great human qualities, as well as technical and sporting. A big good luck”.