Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has offered a strikingly candid insight into how he now manages one of Formula 1’s brightest young talents – and how the experience has forced him to rein himself in.
Kimi Antonelli’s rookie campaign has been anything but ordinary. Thrust into the spotlight as one of the youngest drivers in F1 history and handed a seat at a front-running team, the Italian teenager has faced scrutiny, pressure and expectation on a scale few 19-year-olds could imagine.
And Wolff admits that watching Antonelli navigate those challenges has prompted some serious self-reflection. Speaking openly about the Italian teenager’s development, Wolff acknowledged that his own instincts as a team principal sometimes need checking when dealing with someone so young.
“The thing is that when we speak with Kimi, we are brutally honest when it's good and when it's bad. And then you remind yourself that you're not sitting opposite an adult. Kimi's more kid than an adult,” Wolff explained, speaking on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast.
Learning Patience with a Teenage Prodigy
Antonelli’s rise has been meteoric. A multiple champion in junior categories, he arrived in Formula 1 as a rare breed: a rookie making his Grand Prix debut with a top team.
But that singular status has come with growing pains, including high-profile mistakes and the added weight of online criticism during tougher moments of the season.
“You have to remind yourself that he's just 19,” added Wolff. “Yes, he's a pro in the car and he's been karting all his life and racing all his life. But from the maturity, we're expecting an acceleration of growth that is almost too difficult.
“He's been thrown into this, and I think when you look at some of the worse races, it's just overwhelming the experience that he's making with all of the interest, the media pressure – they're writing you up and down.
“You have an extremely quick and experienced team-mate [George Russell] and he's still coping. And I think that shows that he has great potential for the future, because when I was 19, I was a bit of an idiot.
“I wouldn't have been able to cope with the pressures that he has. And that's why, when I talk to him, I'm a little bit harsh with him, I need to almost take myself back and say, ‘Hold on a minute, you know, he's a kid’. And that's quite an interesting learning for us also.”
Highs and Lows Amid a Season of Growth
Mercedes High Performance Powertrains managing director Hywel Thomas believes Antonelli’s year can be neatly divided into phases – each revealing something new about the teenager’s character.
“I would say it's almost been a game of three thirds,” Thomas said.
“Because he came into the team, and of course in those early races you're like, ‘Wow, this is incredible, that this guy with such little experience is really putting it out there’. Then he had his blip and the results weren't there. And now he's come back super strong. Really impressive.
“And to think, you know, he's the age that he is and he's dealing with it all. And he's very, very intelligent. He deals with people really, really well, and [he’s] very, very mature.
“Now, I've got kids his age and they're not that mature, I can tell you that for nothing, they wouldn't like to hear that, but they're not.”
That ability to rebound – mentally and competitively – has impressed those inside Mercedes most. Antonelli ultimately finished seventh in the championship, a remarkable outcome given the weight of expectation and the calibre of opposition he faced week after week.
For Wolff, the experience has been a reminder that nurturing talent isn’t just about lap times and data traces. Sometimes, it’s about remembering what it truly means to be 19 – and allowing a prodigy the space to grow up under the brightest lights in motorsport.
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