The young man who is rewriting history arrives at Montmeló

BarcelonaItalians are feeling sad, now that the Football World Cup is here and their national team is not participating. The failure of Italian football curiously coincides with a very good era in Italian sport in general, with a record number of medals at the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, with Jannik Sinner shining in tennis, Marco Bezzecchi leading the MotoGP World Championship, and the rugby team defeating the English for the first time. And also thanks to Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The young 19-year-old driver arrives at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya (Montmeló) this weekend leading the Formula 1 World Championship. He is a kid with a child-like face, but in the first Grands Prix of the season, he has had no rivals, as he showed in Monte Carlo a few days ago. Montmeló will receive more Italians than ever this Sunday. And if historically they came dressed in red as Ferrari fans, now some prioritize Mercedes caps, as they have surrendered to the feet of this boy born in Bologna.

A young man destined to shine in a single-seater. Starting with his name: Andrea Kimi Antonelli. In his home, motor racing was a religion, which is why he was baptized with the name of F1 world champion Kimi Räikkönen, who was world champion with Ferrari in 2007, just one year after Antonelli's birth. His father is Marco Antonelli, a racing driver who created his own team to compete in tournaments like Formula 4 or the Italian touring car championships. The Antonellis, naturally, were fans of Ferrari, a team whose headquarters are not far from Bologna. But Ferrari has not managed to dominate the World Championship for years and, in fact, their last world title was Räikkönen's in 2007. That a driver like Antonelli was not discovered by the Cavallino Rampante team shows that something is not working in Maranello. It was Mercedes who detected him, which has led many Italians to have a moral debate. On the one hand, they are usually Ferrari supporters. On the other hand, they see that a historic event could be lived, as the last Italian to win the Formula 1 World Championship was Alberto Ascari... in 1953.

Antonelli grew up in Casalecchio di Reno, a small, very quiet town just outside Bologna. In fact, the previous season, the one of his first podium in Formula 1, he took the university entrance exam with his lifelong high school classmates from the town, although he has finally formally moved to San Marino, an independent state an hour away from home, for tax reasons. As a child, he started by racing karts, winning his first awards and attracting attention. And since his father had contacts in the motorsport world, they didn't miss the Formula 1 Grands Prix in Italy. Although they also follow Bologna football, a club he is a fan of, the passion for Formula 1 led them to name their son Kimi, an idea from fellow driver Enrico Bertaggia, a friend of his father.

The boy grew up on circuits, watching his father and his friends compete in local racing circuits, always surrounded by people who spoke to him of the great names of the past, which is why more than one is surprised when Kimi Antonelli cites Ayrton Senna as his favorite driver. He admires the Brazilian, who died in 1994 precisely in Bologna, after the accident he suffered at the Imola circuit. "I admire him a lot, I've read about him and I've learned that you have to know how to manage pressure, that you have to understand the business of Formula 1 also outside the circuits. When I was able to go to São Paulo, I visited the Ayrton Senna Foundation, which helps young people who don't have money to study, by offering scholarships. They have built schools in poor areas of Brazil. He is a role model I want to follow," he said, speaking to the newspaper La Repubblica. In fact, when he debuted in Formula 1 in 2025, he asked to wear the number 12, the one Senna wore in the 80s.

Instead of admiring modern athletes, Antonelli looks to the past, as he also cites Michael Jordan as a role model to be inspired by, especially for his way of "competing and being focused". It is said of him that he is a mature and very serious boy, who knows how to handle pressure. But he also knows how to communicate well on social media, using humor, as he did this week after seeing the media personality Kim Kardashian snatch his towel after winning in Monaco. With a sense of humor, the Italian wonders in a video where his towel might be, demonstrating that he knows how to reach fans.

After passing through his father's team in Formula 4, he quickly moved up through the ranks until in 2019 Mercedes bet on him and recruited him, getting ahead of Ferrari. And at 18 years old, he already made his debut the previous season. And despite his age, this year he is impressive and is breaking all possible records, such as being the first driver to win his first five Grand Prix consecutively or being the youngest leader in the history of the World Championship. If he wins in Montmeló, he will chain six consecutive victories, a feat that even Lewis Hamilton did not achieve. Hamilton, however, currently looks after him a lot, speaks well of him and congratulates him, despite being rivals. In fact, in case of victory he would already equal the total number of race victories of his Mercedes teammate George Russell, who has been competing for eight years. In just one year, Antonelli can already equal him and continue to open a gap in the World Championship lead. He is currently 66 points ahead of Hamilton and 68 ahead of Russell, which is why in Italy they are getting excited thinking that, 70 years later, an Italian could be world champion.