​Motorsport photoAdjectives are overrated. Facts and numbers usually speak louder. A victory from 19th on the grid. The first victory for an Italian at Monza since 1966. At just 20 years old. In his second Formula 1 season.Call it sensational. Fantastic. Impressive. Magic. Extraordinary. Remarkable. Incredible. Historic. These are just words. Simply the fact that Kimi Antonelli won the Italian Grand Prix after overtaking almost the entire field tells you everything.
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And… just two years after his first-ever FP1 at the same track. The one that ended in the barriers just 10 minutes after the session started.That crash contributed a lot to many forming the opinion that Mercedes had either overestimated Antonelli’s potential or rushed him into F1 too quickly. Toto Wolff’s flashbacks to losing Max Verstappen to Red Bull back in 2014 had fogged his mind, they said. Antonelli was nowhere near Verstappen’s potential, they thought. He was just overhyped, they believed.Mercedes and Wolff never backed down. Promotion to F1 at the age of 18, after a single – and quite average, to be fair – season in F2. Straight into the seat vacated by the seven-time world champion.Andrea Kimi Antonelli, MercedesAndrea Kimi Antonelli, MercedesThey even released a documentary just two months into his first season, in cooperation with one of the sponsors, of course.The Seat.Have you watched it? It’s actually decent if you make your peace with all the promotional content.The Monza crash was part of that movie and took up quite a decent chunk of the 40-minute video.”That day, I let down all my family, my dad,” Kimi said, sitting in front of the camera. “He was not happy.”Wolff is surely someone who has played a major role in Antonelli’s career, along with Gwen Lagrue, the outgoing Mercedes junior programme chief, but it was Kimi’s father Marco who laid the foundations. He doesn’t often speak to the media, and the details of his son’s early career aren’t as well known as, for example, those of Verstappen. Yes, Marco was a driver too – but he wasn’t an F1 driver, after all.One of those rare occasions came just a few days ago, when Italy’s La Gazzetta dello Sport published an interview with Antonelli Sr after Kimi’s 20th birthday.”I also hope he remains who he is, sweet and generous, and continues to do what he loves for as long as possible,” Marco told Italy’s biggest sports newspaper.Marco Antonelli celebrates in parc ferme.Marco Antonelli celebrates in parc ferme.Kimi does indeed seem like a sweet and generous guy, which probably makes it even harder for someone like George Russell. You can’t even hate the kid, however much he keeps beating you – so sweet off track, yet driving like a devil!Yet, despite him now making it all look like a game, it has surely been a tough journey – both for son and father. And perhaps for their relationship, too. Marco may never have