Kimi Antonelli has often been regarded as the next Max Verstappen due to similarities in their careers. Both built strong reputations as forces to be reckoned with in karting at a young age, and Toto Wolff has claimed that Antonelli was the closest to Verstappen’s prowess.
Wolff compared Antonelli’s karting career to Verstappen’s on the F1: Chequered Flag podcast. “We have seen that back in the day his karting was exceptional,” the Mercedes team principal stated. “Maybe the only one who can be close to it is Max’s karting trajectory.”
By the age of nine, Verstappen was a champion in the Belgian and Dutch karting circuit. He moved to the International level with CRG in 2010 and won the WSK World Series in his first year. Verstappen won another title in 2013 – the WSK Euro Series – before stepping into single-seater racing. And from there, his journey to the top was quick.
Antonelli too, had a rapid ascent, thanks to karting. In 2020 and 2021, he won two European Karting championships before directly getting into F4
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Like Verstappen, Antonelli too was allowed to skip a step on his path to F1. The Dutchman went straight from F3 to F1, joining the grid in 2015 with Toro Rosso. Likewise, Antonelli transitioned into F2 directly from F4 and after just a few months, got confirmed as Mercedes’ new driver for 2025.
Wolff is a firm believer in Antonelli’s talent, which is why he decided to promote him to F1 so early.
Wolff’s belief in Antonelli
Antonelli participated in his first-ever F1 race weekend last Friday during FP1 in Monza. He got behind the wheel of the W15 and set a blisteringly quick lap time before crashing out on his next attempt.
Antonelli was dejected, but Wolff was neither bothered nor worried. He expressed full confidence in him, saying, “These moments will happen and will continue to happen next year, but there will also be many highlights.”
Wolff also insisted that his challenge would be slowing Antonelli down rather than urging him to go faster – a luxury problem.
The day after his crash, Wolff and Mercedes officially welcomed Antonelli to the Silver Arrows family. This demonstrated that the Austrian boss had full trust in Antonelli, despite the incident on Friday.
