That Kimi Antonelli would become a racing driver was probably decided long before he could even drive a car.
His father, Marco, is a former racing driver who competed in various GT series and is now a team owner and devoted F1 fan. So it is perhaps no surprise that he named his son after Finnish world champion Kimi Räikkönen.
Räikkönen won the Formula 1 championship in 2007 with Ferrari. It was the last time a driver from the legendary Italian team took home the title.
Since then, Italy’s motor-mad fans have been waiting for a new F1 success.
Now it’s within reach.
Kimi Antonelli is tantalisingly close to lifting the trophy.
In all honesty, he would have to be unlucky not to win.
“Would be cool”
Antonelli only needs to score two more points in the final five races of the season to stay ahead of his rivals and become the youngest F1 champion ever - and the first Italian to win the title in 73 years.
This weekend is the Mexican GP. If Antonelli finishes ninth or better, it won’t matter what George Russell, his Mercedes teammate and runner-up in the standings, does.
“It would be really cool to wrap things up and become the next champion. But winning the title would be just the beginning,” Antonelli told the assembled media after winning the United States GP last weekend.
Twenty-year-old Antonelli, who has won nine of this year’s 18 races, has a lot to thank his father for. There is a story that he was just eight years old when his father took him to an F1 paddock for the first time, smuggling him in among a pile of tyres with an umbrella over his head.
“From the time Kimi was 15 days old, he has been in the garage with me. He was raised to the sound of engines and the smell of exhaust fumes,” Marco Antonelli told the BBC.
When Kimi was three years old, he received a driving simulator for Christmas. Marco remembers how the little boy couldn’t tear himself away from the wheel.
Every day he sat there and drove.
I remember one late night. I fell asleep because I had been up late working. In the game, we crashed and Kimi immediately said: “No, Dad. You can’t fall asleep. I have to drive more.”
Former Ferrari boss overjoyed
The fact that Kimi Antonelli drives for Mercedes, not Ferrari, could be a slight thorn in the side of many Italian fans. But now that Italy will soon have a champion again, that doesn’t seem to be the focus.
“I am a Ferrari person, but at the same time I am overjoyed about what Antonelli is about to do,” former Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo told AS.
Born: August 25, 2006 in Bologna (20 years old).
Team: Mercedes.
Car number: 12 (a tribute to his idol, Ayrton Senna).
F1 victories: Nine.
Current status: Just two points away from winning the F1 world championship. If he does, he will become the youngest champion ever and the first Italian to win the title since the legendary Alberto Ascari did so in 1953.
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Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, 365 points
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George Russell, Mercedes, 242 points
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Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari, 241 points
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Max Verstappen, Red Bull, 236 points
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Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, 233 points
