Kimi Antonelli opens up on the pressure of his 2025 rookie season with Mercedes

Let me tell you, the weight of a Silver Arrows seat can do strange things to a young driver. Kimi Antonelli has opened up about the raw, unfiltered brutality of his rookie season with Mercedes in 2025, admitting quite frankly that he let the pressure completely destroy him during a difficult spell.

Here is the context: following the news that Lewis Hamilton would depart Mercedes for Ferrari, the team opted to promote Antonelli after a rapid climb that saw him bypass F3 and go straight to F2. Everything started smoothly enough. But once the calendar hit the European leg of the campaign, things turned upside down. The Italian driver has confessed that he felt like he was letting down all the people who believed in him, pointing directly to Toto Wolff as the main decision-maker who put faith in him.

Appearing on SAP's Significant Figures podcast, the 19-year-old explained how that dark patch felt from the inside. "I didn't feel good in that period – I wasn't doing well, but then I had a big meeting with the team after the European season, and it kind of allowed me to reset and just start again," he said. That crucial reset let him slowly find his way back, sparking a strong second half of the year that rebuilt his confidence.

That steep learning curve left him physically and mentally drained by the end of the year. Calling the experience the equivalent of doing three years of development all at once, Antonelli acknowledged that while Mercedes did an incredible job trying to protect him, the sheer volume of new experiences was overwhelming. Yet, surviving that trial by fire taught him how his body and brain respond to stress, how to manage his energy across a race weekend, and how to find the right mindset again.

Thankfully, all of that suffering has paid off in spades. Antonelli has gone from strength to strength during his sophomore campaign, sitting right at the top of the Drivers’ standings ever since Round 3 in Japan.