Kimi Antonelli shares what ‘really impressed’ him after watching videos of Ayrton Senna

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Andrea Kimi Antonelli will make his anticipated debut in 2025 with Mercedes as he replaces outgoing seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton.

The Italian has big shoes to fill in what is expected to be a competitive year for Mercedes next season, having turned around their fortunes midway through this season with a breakthrough upgrade to their W15.

Antonelli had his first taste of what to expect during practice for the Italian Grand Prix but would go on to suffer an embarrassing crash just 10 minutes into the session.

Hamilton said he was pushing the car beyond what he thought it was capable of during his brief time behind the wheel, confirming that the 18-year-old is not just in F1 to make up numbers.

His junior career record is impressive, with title victories in Italian F4 and throughout his karting career which got him noticed by Mercedes’ team principal Toto Wolff.

Discussing who his main influences were growing up in an interview with ESPN, Antonelli said his dad used to make him watch videos of F1 legend Ayrton Senna and there was one thing that stood out for him.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli impressed by Ayrton Senna’s qualifying laps

Antonelli is known for having an uncanny ability to recall previous laps times he did while on track in any session, with a video shared by his F2 team Prema showing off this party trick.

This enables Antonelli to understand when a track is at peak performance, something he learned when watching old qualifying laps of Senna.

“With my father, especially when I was little, we used to watch so many races and some from DVDs,” said Kimi Antonelli.

“I just remember looking at Ayrton, and especially what was really impressive was his qualifying lap. I thought to myself, ‘I like this driver,’ and then I just started to read about him and watch more videos about him, just to get more knowledge about him.”

Andrea Kimi Antonelli admits he had a ‘lot of work to do’ before F1 debut

Mercedes understands that Antonelli is far from the finished product and is unlikely to be able to jump into the car and instantly challenge for podiums.

While there are similarities to Hamilton’s debut with McLaren, whereby the Briton was close in the title battle with Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, Antonelli admitted there is still a ‘lot of work to do’ ahead of his debut.

READ MORE: Who is 2025 Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli? Everything to know

Antonelli has benefited from advice from Hamilton already this season and will be using the remaining races of the season to understand more from Mercedes engineers.

He will also have the benefit of working with experienced engineer Peter Bonnington, who has been working alongside Hamilton throughout his tenure at Mercedes.