Why Ferrari rejected Kimi Antonelli before Mercedes swooped in | F1 | Sport

Ferrari failed to sign Kimi Antonelli as a child because he was deemed to be “too small”. It has emerged the Italian was courted by the Scuderia when he was just 11, his talent already clear to see. Snapped up by Mercedes not long after, Antonelli graduated into F1 last year as the successor to Lewis Hamilton‘s seat.

And he has begun his sophomore season in eye-catching fashion, becoming the first teenager to win multiple Grands Prix and the youngest championship leader ever. It is an immense source of pride for Italian F1 fans – but also a story of what could have been for the country’s national team.

Because Ferrari had the chance to get their claws into Italy’s next top prospect, but passed it up. Veteran F1 journalist and pundit Mark Hughes has revealed how former Scuderia chief Maurizio Arrivabene let such an obvious prodigy slip through his fingers.

Writing for The Race, he said: “In that world there was a huge buzz around him even as an 11-year-old, such that Massimo Rivola, then director of Ferrari’s driving academy, believed he’d found ‘the special one’ for the future. Rivola’s recommendation was overruled by Ferrari’s then-team principal Maurizio Arrivabene, who felt Antonelli was ‘too small’ to be a serious prospect.”

Following Ferrari’s rejection, Toto Wolff was alerted to young Antonelli’s talents by Gwen Lagrue, the head of Mercedes‘ junior programme. The Frenchman also played a role in securing George Russell‘s services as an 18-year-old and convinced Wolff that Antonelli was also a superb prospect at just 12.

That was the same year that Russell made his F1 debut, driving for customer team Williams where he would spend three seasons honing his craft before getting the nod to step up to drive for the main Silver Arrows squad. Meanwhile, Antonelli was fast-tracked into the other car last year, both now representing Mercedes on the grid in a year in which the championship looks to be theirs to lose.

After Antonelli’s win in Japan on Sunday, Wolff reflected on Antonelli’s rapid rise and his pride in seeing two home-grown drivers representing his team on track. The Mercedes chief said: “It’s incredible. Yesterday he was 14, today he’s 19, he’s winning two races in a row in Formula 1, and we are really happy about the development that he’s taking.

“The truth is, we as a team starting from Gwen, who runs our junior programme, who spotted him when he was 11 to the whole team, the engineers that gave him the opportunity, the marketing people that have been looking at him and protecting him – that’s another factor now, we need to protect him from people talking about world championships – all of us, it’s a joint effort to have two junior drivers in the lead of this championship.”