Why Italy's F1 champion Kimi Antonelli doesn't drive for Ferrari and Mercedes' bet paid off

As Italy celebrated its first Formula 1 champion in 73 years , there was a note of snark aimed at the country's biggest racing brand.

Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli was on top of the world “thanks to his talent, his car and not having raced for Ferrari,” a line on the front page of Italy's biggest sports paper La Gazzetta dello Sport said.

While Antonelli partied , Ferrari descended into infighting between its drivers as the iconic team marked its 19th year in a row without a champion driver.

Here's why Antonelli wasn't wearing Ferrari red, and how Mercedes' bet on a youngster paid off after seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton left.

Amid the celebrations in Mexico on Sunday, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff turned the clock back to 2017 and his first meetings with then 11-year-old Antonelli.

That was the age when Antonelli was turned away by Ferrari and joined Mercedes and Wolff instead. The exact details of what happened are contested, but former Ferrari personnel have said he was considered too young for its development program.

“It’s incredible. We have to pinch ourselves because it seems like yesterday he was 11 years old in the garage in junior karting and it goes so fast,” Wolff told Sky Sports.

Wolff said it was “always a calculated risk, not a real risk” to give Antonelli his F1 shot for 2025 when Hamilton left for Ferrari but revealed Mercedes “had two sponsors leaving us because of that, because of, you know, ‘Who is this kid?’”

Even Antonelli has admitted he began to doubt himself in his winless and erratic rookie year. A breakthrough win in China in March started a run of five victories which left Antonelli as Mercedes' main title contender ahead of his more experienced teammate George Russell.

F1 teams are increasingly focusing on younger drivers. The Mercedes young driver mentor Gwen Lagrue, a key figure in Antonelli's development, was a high-profile hire this year for Red Bull, which also signed the 11-year-old son of Kimi Raikkonen, the last driver to win the title for Ferrari in 2007.

Antonelli is redefining how F1 fandom works in Italy after decades of support for Ferrari as a team, no matter the nationality of the driver in the cockpit.

Signing Hamilton was meant to bring Ferrari back to the top in F1, but it just hasn't happened yet.

As Antonelli and Mercedes celebrated — though without teammate George Russell, who left early — Ferrari was descending into yet another bout of the infighting which has marred the team in recent years.

Hamilton's opening-lap battle with teammate Charles Leclerc dropped him to third and got Leclerc a penalty.

“We lost valuable points we could have easily been one-two today, but your teammate works against you,” Hamilton said, adding: “something needs to change, for sure.”

Signing Hamilton was the ultimate evolution of Ferrari's decades-old blueprint for success. For decades, it's spent big on hiring the very best drivers from around the world.

When it works, it's spectacular, like Michael Schumacher's five titles in a row for Ferrari in the 2000s. Hamilton's childhood memories of “seeing Michael in the red car” played a big part in his decision to join the team, too.

With one win in two years at Ferrari, Hamilton now risks being remembered alongside other F1 greats who couldn't bring success to Italy. Alain Prost, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso won a combined 10 titles, but spent 13 years between them at Ferrari without winning the championship there.

For a proudly Italian team, Ferrari has often had little involvement with local talent. Founder Enzo Ferrari stopped hiring Italians after a spate of fatal crashes for the team's Italian stars in F1's early years. Only one Italian, Michele Alboreto, drove a full season for the team in the last half-century.

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