Rob Smedley highlighted the importance of Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington in Kimi Antonelli’s 2026 Formula 1 season. For the former race engineer, the professional plays an essential role alongside the Mercedes driver, although the execution on the track remains the responsibility of the Italian.
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Antonelli took the lead in the championship after winning the Chinese and Japanese GPs, and since then, has maintained a trajectory of improvement. With eight wins, the last of them at the Spanish GP, the driver opened an 81-point gap over his teammate George Russell, second in the standings.
During the High Performance Racing podcast, Smedley was asked how much of Antonelli’s performance this season can be attributed to Bonnington, who has previously worked with Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton. Initially, the former engineer responded jokingly: “Bono is everything. Everything. The engineer should get all the credit. Without the engineer, these guys wouldn’t be anywhere,” he said laughing.
Then, Smedley explained more seriously why he considers Bonnington so important for the current championship leader: “He deserves some credit, right? Because he keeps Kimi on the right track. Gives him all the information he needs. But Kimi is the one on the pedal, right? He’s the one who has to deliver on Sunday afternoon,” he added.
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Otmar Szafnauer, who participated in the podcast alongside Smedley and Jake Humphrey, added that the relationship between the two works both ways: “Antonelli is also part of the feedback loop. He tells Bono what he wants, and Bono does it,” explained the former Alpine boss.
Antonelli himself had already highlighted the value of the partnership. During the 2025 Chinese GP weekend, the Italian called it a ‘privilege’ to work with Bonnington and emphasized the experience accumulated by the engineer alongside Schumacher and Hamilton. For the Italian driver, this knowledge is especially useful given the new situations that arise in his career and the need to learn to deal with different scenarios.
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