Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s father is also a racer but was reluctant for his son to get into motorsport.
The new Formula 1 championship leader said his father changed his mind when he saw how eager he was to start racing.
Antonelli credited his arrival in F1 to his father Marco, who runs the GT racing team Antonelli Motorsport.
“It was thanks to my dad,” Antonelli told the BBC. “He has been a racing driver himself and he still is. He’s been running for many, many years his own racing team and it got me into motorsport.
“Since I was very little, I used to spend time with him at the race track during his race weekends, and from then I started to build a passion for motorsport.”
He described how his father did not want him to start racing to begin with.
“To be honest, to be fair, initially he didn’t want me to race, because he knows how motorsport can be amazing, but at the same time can be brutal. He faced it himself as well, the brutal side of motorsport, and he didn’t want me to get affected by it. He didn’t want me to get too disappointed about difficult moments and so on, so he wanted to kind of protect me.”
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Antonelli said his father changed his mind “when he saw I had so much passion for the sport.”
“He saw that I really cared about it. He didn’t have to push for it. It was me pushing for it, so that’s when he understood that probably I will become a racing driver.”
His performances in karting caught the eye of former Formula 1 team boss Gian Carlo Minardi. He initiated the first contact between the Antonelli family and the Mercedes team he now drives for.
“It all started thanks to the Minardi family because they sent a message to Toto [Wolff, Mercedes team principal] about me. Then obviously Toto got interested.
“[At the] end of 2017 he sent over Gwen [Lagrue], he’s the head of the junior programme, and they saw that there was some potential and decided to get me into the academy.
“That was an incredible moment because I remember being in the car with my dad and I remember receiving the call from Toto and we were together and that call was about me getting into the programme and I think it was a really special moment.”
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Antonelli scored his first grand prix victory in China where the trackside announcer incorrectly introduced him as ‘Kimi Raikkonen‘. The Mercedes driver is not named after the 2007 world champion.
“Obviously Andrea Kimi Antonelli is quite long, the name, but I think everyone calls me Kimi because he’s a very well-known name in the world of motorsport,” acknowledged Antonelli, who said he prefers to use his full name where possible.
“For example, we made this box for charity to give away, and initially they wanted to put ‘Kimi Antonelli’, but I asked to put ‘Andrea Kimi Antonelli’ because at the end of the day that’s my full name. Of course, I’m more known as Kimi than Andrea, but I think it’s important as well that I show my full name.
“Obviously, in the world of racing, they only call me Kimi, which I’m fine with it, but at home, my closest friends call me Andrea.”
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