Most young drivers who sit in their karts for the first time envision just one thing for themselves in the future — a seat in F1. Getting there isn’t easy and only the most talented make it, as has Kimi Antonelli, one of the most highly regarded stars in the world of motorsports.
Antonelli first started getting F1 shouts when he was just 16, and just over a year later, his lifelong ambition materialized when Toto Wolff chose him as Lewis Hamilton’s successor at Mercedes. So in 2025, the Italian has had a spring in his step.
He is doing everything an F1 driver does—appearing for interviews, photoshoots, media segments, and marketing activities. He even drove his car (the W16) in Bahrain for pre-season testing.
The only thing left? His race debut. Antonelli is excited with the 2025 season opener just a few days away now and spoke about the same in a Mercedes YouTube segment.
“It’s going to be quite a unique moment,” the 18-year-old said. “Also, my little sister is going to be there…Hopefully, it’s going to be a good weekend. I feel it’s really important to have them by my side.”
For Antonelli, stepping onto the Albert Park circuit this Friday as an F1 driver will be nothing short of a dream fulfilled. It’ll be a massive moment not just for him, but for his family — the ones who have stood by him since day one.
Not Antonelli’s first visit to the F1 grid
Like all F1 drivers, Antonelli has his inspirations. Aside from his F1 hero Ayrton Senna, he idolizes his father, Marco, a former racing driver.
Growing up in a motorsport family, Antonelli always wanted to visit the F1 paddock. He got that opportunity in 2014 when his father was competing in the Porsche Supercup at Hockenheim, a race that some of the most popular drivers in the world attended since an F1 Grand Prix was set to take place on the same weekend.
Unfortunately, Antonelli was deemed too small to enter. But Marco had a hilarious improvisation up his sleeve. “My dad decided to hide me inside a stack of tires and wheel me through on a trolley. We put an umbrella on top to make me harder to see,” Antonelli recalled in a Mercedes interview.
Kimi did the “My First F1 day” 2025. pic.twitter.com/eK4cSq6lFu
— Kimi Antonelli Updates (@AndreaKimiNews) March 8, 2025
So, when Antonelli steps into the paddock in Melbourne as an F1 driver this Thursday, he will surely have flashbacks of that incident once again. Meanwhile, for his dad, his little sister, and the rest of his family, it will be a proud moment.
And with some experts predicting that the young Italian can also have a crack at the podium, it could make Antonelli’s debut one of the best in recent times.
