Kimi Antonelli has impressed even within Mercedes in the 2026 Formula 1 season. The championship leader, after winning six of the first ten races, received praise from Toto Wolff, who admitted to being surprised by the maturity shown by the driver in only his second year in the category.
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Antonelli arrives at the current point of the season with a 45-point lead over Lewis Hamilton in the standings, while George Russell is another five points behind, after retiring from the Belgian GP. For Wolff, the Italian’s evolution goes far beyond the results achieved on track.
“We are all surprised. The first season was exactly as we expected. There were great moments where his talent shone through, but also very difficult moments, especially that long sequence in the middle of the season. After the winter, it was also expected that he would better understand the environment, the pressure, the technical and commercial demands of the team, and the circuits. But what we didn’t expect was the serenity and organization he brought to the way he competes,” he stated.
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“With Kimi, it doesn’t matter if the session was good or bad, you don’t see a difference in his emotions during the debriefing. It’s all very objective: ‘What’s the problem? How do we solve it? How do we move forward?’. This is something new.”
Wolff also drew attention to how the Italian reacts to both victories and difficult moments. “It’s curious because, when he wins, you don’t see that huge excitement you would normally expect from a 19-year-old. At the same time, when things go wrong, like in Barcelona, when we had a car problem, or in Silverstone, he comes back to the team saying: ‘This is a mechanical sport, these things happen’. He is 19 years old. This is very, very impressive. This mindset and attitude are probably the main factors that allowed his talent to emerge so early in his career.”
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