He’ll soon be in control of one of the world’s most powerful racing machines, and yet young Kimi Antonelli has only just passed his road driving test.
Mercedes already trust the talented teenager enough to put him in the cockpit of their multi-million-pound racing cars, replacing Lewis Hamilton. But up until this week the 18-year-old couldn’t have even driven a 1ltr hatchback on the road.
But that has now changed. In a post on his social media accounts, Antonelli confirmed that he has now passed his driving test in his native Italy with a photo of himself with a thumb up to the camera and smiling while behind the wheel of a road car.
In the caption, Antonelli joked that it was “mission completed” ahead of his maiden season as one of only 20 F1 drivers on the planet. There has been plenty of hype around him over the last 12 months, given his rapid rise to stardom.
The young Italian was so successful in lower single-seater categories that he skipped Formula 3 altogether and was placed in a competitive Prema Racing Formula 2 season last season. Aware that Hamilton’s future with the team was finite, Mercedes wanted to prepare their brightest young talent for promotion to F1.
It came earlier than expected, when Hamilton confirmed last February that he had agreed to join Ferrari for the 2025 season. Team principal Toto Wolff made an ambitious public play to try to convince Max Verstappen to join his team but, as soon as he realised the Dutchman wasn’t going to quit Red Bull, he turned to Antonelli.
The 18-year-old will partner George Russell this season, now as a legal road driver as well as a racing prodigy. In previous seasons, leaving it so late in the day would have been a real risk given FIA rules used to require all drivers participating in F1 to hold a valid road licence.
But that particular requirement was dropped during the 2024 season, along with a tweak to the rules which once again opens the door for a driver under 18 to race in the sport. Verstappen remains the only driver in F1 history to do so when he made his debut for Toro Rosso in 2015 aged 17 years and 166 days.
Following the Dutchman’s promotion, the rules were tightened to make sure only people over 18 could qualify for a superlicence. But the latest tweak means the FIA can now grant special permission for anyone over 17 to race in F1 if they have “recently and consistently demonstrated outstanding ability and maturity in single-seater formula car competition”.
It was initially believed Mercedes had requested that change to get Antonelli onto the grid earlier but the Silver Arrows denied that was the case. Red Bull are the ones who stand to potentially benefit this year as their own young starlet, Britain’s Arvid Lindblad, doesn’t turn 18 until August and could take part in practice sessions or possibly even by promoted to a race seat before then.
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