How Formula 1 record winner Lewis Hamilton is trying to give his struggling Mercedes successor Andrea Kimi Antonelli a confidence boost
Formula 1 rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli achieved his first podium finish at the Canadian Grand Prix in June. But since then, the Mercedes driver has been waiting for another success and more World Championship points – and the pressure is mounting.
That’s why Antonelli’s Mercedes predecessor Lewis Hamilton has now stepped in. The seven-time Formula 1 world champion was seen encouraging Antonelli on the sidelines of the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps.
But what exactly did Hamilton say? “Lewis told me to keep my head up and that it’s normal to have a bad weekend sometimes. And that I should continue to believe in myself,“ Antonelli explains.
The young Italian found this ”really nice” and greatly appreciates Hamilton’s support—at a time when criticism of him is greater than praise for his performance in Formula 1 so far.
Hamilton, on the other hand, “can hardly imagine what it’s like to do something like that at 18,” he said in an interview with Sky. Hamilton himself entered Formula 1 in 2007 as a McLaren driver at the age of 22, finished on the podium in his very first Grand Prix and had already won his sixth race.
All that four years ago? “I’m trying to imagine it,” Hamilton said. “To be thrown in at the deep end like that at 18 – he didn’t even have his driver’s license when he started here.”
Russell shows what the Mercedes can do
But Antonelli has a winning car at his disposal in the Mercedes W16: his teammate George Russell has already won a race with it. This potential and the pressure in a Formula 1 works team can be a “big burden on your shoulders,” says Hamilton.
What’s more, Antonelli has the ideal environment at Mercedes and “great people around him,” Hamilton continues. One person he trusts is Hamilton’s former race engineer Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington, who now looks after Antonelli. “He has him at his side,” says Hamilton. “It couldn’t be better.”
Only the results do not reflect this so far: While Russell has only failed to score points in Monaco with Mercedes, Antonelli has failed to score in seven of 13 race weekends so far. And when he did make it into the top 10, it was always behind Russell. This explains Antonelli’s large deficit of 63:157 points to Russell shortly after the halfway point of the season.