His promotion is a consequence of Hamilton’s decision to leave Mercedes, which forced the hand of team principal Toto Wolff.
Wolff could still have farmed Antonelli out to another team to gain experience for a couple of years, as he did with Russell at Williams from 2019-21.
In the end, Wolff preferred to simply throw Antonelli in at the deep end, prepare him well with thousands of kilometres of testing in old cars, and trust his talent.
Wolff has said he expects mistakes, and that it is Mercedes’ job to help Antonelli develop. And the driver – who crashed heavily on his second flying lap when given an outing in practice at last year’s Italian Grand Prix – is aware of the responsibility.
“I want to have a clean run, nice rhythm, consistent,” he says. “But the mindset is going to be the same, going on track and try to win, try to be as fast as possible, try to get as best result as possible.”
Antonelli’s talent is not the only reason he has stood out. There is also his name.
He is known universally in F1 as “Kimi”, probably because his middle name carries obviously heavy resonance.
But although there is motorsport in the family – father Marco is a sports car racer – Antonelli says he was not named after Finnish 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen.
“Basically, my parents wanted to give me a second name that would fit well with the first name and the surname, but they didn’t want a second Italian name,” he says. “They wanted something different.
“A really good friend of ours, his name is Enrico Bertaggia, he has a background of racing. (Bertaggia was entered in eight grands prix for back-of-the-grid teams between 1989-92). He decided to name me Kimi. My parents said: ‘Yeah, it sounds great.’ And so I got named.”
Antonelli says he understands why everyone calls him Kimi, rather than his actual first name.
“It is more natural,” he says. “It is nice and short. Especially in the world of racing, it is such an iconic name.
“My best friends, my close friends, they all call me Andrea. Also my family.”
Remarkably, Antonelli was born five years after Fernando Alonso made his debut in F1 in 2001, and the two will be on the same grid as each other this year.
Antonelli says it is “a privilege” to share the F1 grid with drivers such as Hamilton and Fernando Alonso.
And there are other historical resonances about Antonelli. He says his hero growing up was three-time world champion Ayrton Senna, and coincidentally there is something of the legendary Brazilian in Antonelli’s looks.
“Yeah, (people) told me that,” he says. “I don’t really like being compared because I think you know every person has his own personality but he is my idol, he is my reference, so it would be cool just to achieve even little part of what he achieved in his whole career.”
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