- Kimi Antonelli, the youngest world champion in F1 history at 20, was moved to tears when 70,000 fans chanted his name at San Siro, per Crash.net.
- Five Mercedes mechanics describe a champion who pinches them, covers birthday faces in whipped cream and learned every name in the garage within two days.
- Their stories reach back to 2024 tests, crashed chassis and a father’s half hour scolding.
The Champion Who Pinches His Crew and Hears Italy Sing His Name
Antonelli was spending a weekend off at San Siro, watching Italy play France, when the stadium turned to him. A crowd of 70,000 began to chant his name, and he was seen fighting back tears.
When his face appeared on the big screen, “Wow,” Antonelli was seen saying.
It was his first home ovation after he clinched the title with four races to spare in Mexico. At 20 he is the youngest world champion ever, and the first Italian to win the drivers’ title in 73 years. The people who work on his car know another side of him.
Mischief in the Mercedes Garage
“When he comes into the garage, it’s quite a show,” said Nathan Tupper, who works on the power unit of Antonelli’s car. “He grabs everyone, pinches people’s nipples, slaps them all over and generally causes chaos. At the end of the day, he’s 20 years old. That’s just Kimi.”
Ash Jones, the second senior mechanic on Antonelli’s car, agrees: “There are so many practical jokes that it would be difficult to list them all. He comes over, says hello and then gives you a pinch. That’s how he jokes around with us. He likes having a good relationship with everyone, laughing and having fun together.”
Tom Mason, Antonelli’s number one mechanic, has seen it countless times: “It always makes me laugh watching him getting ready to get into the car before qualifying. He’s still joking around, grabbing the guys, tickling them. Even when the pressure is enormous, he’s there having fun. He’s incredibly relaxed.”
Antonelli also started a tradition of covering a birthday person’s face in whipped cream. Callum Wooldridge, who works on the front end of his car, explained the appeal. “When you work in Formula 1, you spend so much time away from home that sometimes you end up celebrating your birthday during a grand prix weekend,” he said.
“It’s not always easy. Sometimes you really miss being at home. Kimi started this thing with whipped cream in people’s faces, and I don’t think there are many other garages in the paddock where something like that happens. It’s funny. It happened to me on my birthday in September last year.”
“It’s one of the best atmospheres I’ve ever experienced working with a driver,” said Jones. “With Kimi, you feel completely comfortable. It’s like talking to one of the guys you work with every day. There’s no awkwardness, no tension when you speak to him.”
Race engineer Peter Bonnington backs the approach. “Bono encourages us to interact with him, to have a laugh,” Mason explained. “Kimi is very approachable and loves joking around with the guys. It’s a really good environment to work in.”
The Kid in the Blue Cap
Franck Bougeard worked on the 2024 testing programme that prepared Antonelli for his F1 debut. He met the driver in the spring, at a test in Austria. Antonelli was 17 and wore a blue cap with unruly hair sticking out from underneath.
“I remember all that hair coming out of his cap, looking a bit messy,” said Bougeard with a smile. “He really looked like a little kid. And there he was, about to drive a Formula 1 car.”
“At Abu Dhabi, he crashed and damaged the chassis. Luckily, we’d brought a spare one, which is something we hardly ever do at those tests,” he said. “I don’t even know why we’d brought it, but thank goodness we had, because we needed it.”
Then came Monza, and another accident. “At that point I was starting to think, ‘brilliant, every time this kid leaves the garage, we’re going to end up changing a chassis!’,” he added. “He was very quick, but sometimes he pushed too hard. He needed to learn where the limit of the car was, and a few crashes were part of that process. That’s exactly why we were there, to give him the opportunity to learn.”
Antonelli came back to the garage upset about the extra work. “He kept apologising,” Bougeard recalled. “He was saying how sorry he was for having destroyed the car again. I told him it wasn’t a problem and that the important thing was that he was OK. Then I asked him: ‘What did your dad say?'”
Antonelli’s answer stuck with the mechanic. “He gave me a telling-off for half an hour!,” Bougeard said, repeating Antonelli’s answer. Bougeard also asked how Antonelli’s mother had reacted. Kimi told him she had been terribly frightened, to the point of tears.
In Abu Dhabi his father Marco crossed the circuit to reach him after the crash. “Marco was on the other side of the track. When Kimi crashed, he immediately set off to get to him,” said Bougeard. “I had to speak to him afterwards. I said: ‘Marco, there are professionals here, there are ambulances. The last thing I want is for you to get run over by an ambulance while you’re crossing the circuit!'”
Sorry Never Needed
Antonelli joined the Mercedes race team at the start of 2025, taking over from Lewis Hamilton at 18.
“Whenever he made a mistake, he felt incredibly bad about it,” said Mason. “He kept apologising for the damage to the car and for all the work he’d caused us. Eventually, I told him he needed to stop worrying about that.”
“I told him: ‘You don’t need to apologise to us. If something goes wrong, you don’t have to worry about the car or the work we have to do. ‘We’re happy to do our jobs. As long as you give everything you’ve got, we’ll do exactly the same for you.'”
The crew had its own doubts. “We didn’t really know what to expect,” Mason admitted. “We’d worked with Lewis for so many years and knew his habits inside out. With Kimi, everything was going to be new. I wondered how many accidents he might have, how long it would take him to adapt and how much extra work he might create for us.”
The 2025 season brought hard moments. “Spa was particularly difficult for him,” he added. “But we weren’t angry. If anything, we felt sorry for him because we could see how much he was suffering. He was so young and had an enormous amount of pressure on his shoulders.”
Mason prizes how fast Antonelli moves on from disappointment. “He can have a terrible weekend, or a practice session where everything goes wrong,” he said. “When he gets out of the car, he’s angry. You can clearly see it. But the next time you meet him, he’s already completely different. He comes back into the garage full of enthusiasm, ready to start again. He doesn’t carry that negativity around with him. It’s almost as if he starts again from zero every time.”
“If a driver is constantly in a bad mood, the people working with him eventually end up feeling the same way,” he claimed. “With Kimi, it’s the opposite. He’s so positive that his enthusiasm rubs off on everyone. For me, having to coordinate the work of the guys, that’s an ideal situation.”
Two Days to Learn Every Name
All five mechanics agree that Antonelli learned their names fast. “That’s one of the things that impressed me most,” said Jones. “He knows everyone in the garage. Not just their names, but details about their personal lives too. If you tell him something about yourself, he remembers it.”
“When we found out Kimi was coming, I spoke to Rosa, his press officer,” Mason said. “I suggested organising something so that we could all get to know him. Rosa told me Kimi was really enthusiastic about the idea, but first he wanted to do something with the guys who’d worked with him during testing.”
“He was very conscious of that,” said Mason. “He wanted to make sure he met up with the people from the testing programme first, the guys who had been with him up to that point. Then he would get to know everyone else.”
“After a couple of days, he already knew everyone’s name,” added Mason. “And that’s incredible when you think about how much he had to learn at the same time: a new car, how the team operated, all the procedures, working with the engineers. Yet he still found the time to get to know every single person.”
Tupper says Marco has the same affectionate relationship with the crew. “You can be working away and suddenly someone comes up and gives you a hug from behind. You turn around and discover it’s Marco,” he said. “That’s just how he is. They’re a very open, affectionate family. They make you feel part of their world.”
Wooldridge remembers the driver he met at the start of 2025: “He was still a little shy and needed time to settle in. As the months went by, he opened up more and more. Today he’s not shy at all. He jokes with everyone.”
“But really, he’s still the same person. He’s just learned to feel at home. He’s part of the family now. He behaves exactly like the rest of us. And the nice thing is that his attitude doesn’t change depending on the results. Whether he’s had a good day or a bad one, he’s always the same kid.”
Melbourne, Monza and a Title Worth Crying Over
At the 2026 opener in Melbourne, Antonelli badly damaged his car in FP3 and the mechanics raced to rebuild it for qualifying. He started second on the grid.
“After qualifying, I went to speak to him,” Jones said. “He told me: ‘I’ve no idea how you managed to get my car back on track.’ He genuinely couldn’t believe it!”
“He was incredibly grateful for what we’d done. He just kept thanking us,” he said. “That’s something that has really stayed with me.”
“When Kimi has a bad day, we feel bad too,” said Wooldridge. “Whether the problem is down to him or the car doesn’t really matter. We’re so close that we all go through the same emotions together. It’s like being on a rollercoaster.”
Each mechanic names a turning point. Jones points to Monza, where Antonelli won from 19th on the grid, the first Italian home winner in 60 years. Wooldridge picks Austin, where an unexpected pole became a win. Tupper remembers the emotion of the maiden win in China, the race after Australia. Bougeard takes the long view.
“It’s incredible to think how much he’s grown in such a short space of time,” he said. “We knew he had talent, but I never imagined he’d come this far, this quickly.”
“It’s difficult not to like him,” he claimed. “Even if you woke up one morning thinking you really didn’t want to put up with Kimi that day, the moment you see him, you change your mind. He’s got a great sense of humour and loves teasing people. He gives you the feeling that he’s genuinely enjoying what he does.”
Sunday evening in Mexico City brought hugs and tears in the garage, after a weekend in which fever and title talk left Antonelli tense and tired.
Two days later he sat in Ayrton Senna’s 1986 Lotus, and now a stadium full of Italians has sung to him.
Antonelli has this weekend off before he returns to the cockpit at the Las Vegas Grand Prix next weekend. Mercedes already holds the constructors’ title after his fifth place in Brazil, so the crew that rebuilt his car in Melbourne now works for the champion on both counts.
