🇪🇸 F1'25, R09: Hell in a (Survival) Cell

It has been a triple header to forget for Kimi Antonelli. The Mercedes driver was one of five to score zero points in the past three Grands Prix, held on consecutive weekends as part of the “farewell tour” trio. F1 confirmed that Imola is not in the series’ future, Barcelona has one more year before being replaced by the Madring, and Monaco… is going nowhere. Not while the world sees more yachts than overtakes.

But back to Kimi. The teenage rookie joined his former Prema teammate Ollie Bearman, South American pair Gabriel Bortoleto and Franco Colapinto, and an ailing Lance Stroll, who did not take part in the third race of this European run in getting an unwanted clean sheet, and in years to come, he will look back on this poor run with a mix of embarrassment and puzzlement.

It has not been all his fault. A baffling zero stop strategy in Monaco generated zero points, limping home in 18th with his starting tyres screeching for mercy. Sandwiched either side of the street circuit shambles was a throttle issue in Imola and a power unit blowout in Barcelona. 

He has been let down a by his machinery or his strategy, but his season up to now has been relatively promising. There aren't many true rookies who do their first F1 race in a top three/four car, but Antonelli has prepped and been prepped for this moment for several years. 

That prep has paid off, with the young Italian breaking several records in his short F1 time so far.

He is the youngest pole sitter in F1 (yes, it was a Sprint, but allow it), become the youngest driver to lead a lap and also the youngest driver to set a fastest lap. Antonelli is a young driver with potential, and as the thinly-veiled product placement will tell you, he is in the most coveted and high pressure F1 seat in a generation, and any driver that replaces Lewis Hamilton gets a very special spotlight applied to them.

You can do all the testing you want, but there’s no way you can replicate that. That means mistakes - either by the driver or the Team - are going to be made. At Monza 2024, while deputising in practice for George Russell, Antonelli buried the car into the Parabolica wall at over 52g. The crash did not stop his accession to Formula 1, however, although Mercedes have tried to minimise the risk by offering a one-year contract. There are presumably performance clauses and options on both sides.

The Team know they have to do better by their young star though, with Andrew Shovlin being quoted as saying "It's always disappointing to lose a car from the points with a reliability issue; we've not been strong enough in that area over the last three races so we will need to tackle that urgently.”

In most normal years (or at least as normal as F1 gets), my feeling is that Mercedes would have given Antonelli one more year in Formula 2, plugging in a more experienced option for a season (Valtteri Bottas, anyone?) before pushing Antonelli forward. Or using one of their power unit customers to loan him without the pressure of being a Mercedes driver (on loan to Williams, with Carlos Sainz the other way?) But 2025 is no normal year as the new regulations kick in in 2026 with the only known factor is that adding an unknown driver to an unknown car equals too much risk.

So Mercedes had their hand forced, promoting Antonelli after his single season in F2, having skipped F3 completely. Jumping an entire series isn’t a bad blueprint, as Max Verstappen did exactly the same thing, missing out on F2 and going straight to F1 in 2015 from Formula 3.

As career echoes go, Antonelli really has it tough. He has the same given name as Ferrari’s last World Champion Kimi Raikkonen, replaced a seven-time World Champion in Lewis Hamilton and followed a similar career path as four-time champion Max Verstappen.

Even though he is on a contract until the end of 2025, it feels like Antonelli will be a Formula 1 fixture for years to come. He hasn’t yet had a podium, and that feels like a definite step forward to come in a season where noted tennis fan George Russell has been mainly a model of consistency, fighting Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen for the final spot on the podium.

Russell has outscored Antonelli by more than 60 points so far and in most teams, some F1 writers would be writing a sporting obituary for the young Italian. But the flashes of race craft and a first third of a season with some promising results should see Antonelli take the Mercedes in 2026. In the highly unlikely scenario that it isn’t Antonelli, he won’t be short of interest across the grid.

Formula 1 has had a week off before an excursion to Montreal. Lance Stroll has recovered enough to take part in his home race, robbing us of a potential stand in storyline. But the rest of the plot is likely to be familiar with the battle between both McLaren drivers being the focus at the front. Canada has been my favourite race ever since the 2011 marathon.