Kimi Antonelli’s Formula 1 debut at the 2025 Australian Grand Prix might fall under the radar given it was such an eventful race, but it really shouldn’t.
This wasn’t a faultless weekend from the hyped-up debutant, nor would it ever have been given the conditions and the context: warm on Friday; hot on Saturday; rainy and cold on Sunday. The rookies were being run through the gauntlet.
Antonelli did have a moment in qualifying where he picked up floor damage running over the kerbs, which cost him a Q2 spot by just 0.09 seconds - but Sunday's weather forecast indicated there would be chances to make up ground.
As the rookies fell one by one - Isack Hadjar, Jack Doohan, Gabriel Bortoleto and Liam Lawson - only ex-Formula 2 team-mates Ollie Bearman and Kimi Antonelli were left.
Bearman was poor this weekend, crashing twice, but he clawed something back by making it to the finish line albeit 14th and last, while Antonelli was almost flawless bar one spin in the wet race as he charged to fourth.
“I think today we got all the worst possible conditions for our first race," Antonelli said. "I mean, we've got wet, slicks on damp, slicks on wet, and then back to wet.
“Of course, I made a couple of mistakes, especially the spin, but the conditions were super, super tricky. I mean, also those white [painted] lines were a killer, but yeah, really happy.”
Antonelli did admit that the strategy wasn’t his call; he wanted to stay out on slicks for one more lap when the rain fell late on as it was only wet in sector three - but he was relieved that Mercedes erred on the “safer side”.
He temporarily lost his fourth place on debut behind team-mate George Russell - who Antonelli joined to congratulate in parc ferme - via a five-second penalty for an unsafe release in the pits, a penalty Mercedes boss Toto Wolff wasn't entirely convinced was justified and later successfully had overturned.
“I didn't really know I had the penalty," Antonelli said. "I just knew that the team told me to keep pushing even on the last lap. So it's a shame… But I cannot complain about today. Everything went well. And definitely, I feel like I was quite lucky with the spin.”
Regardless, this was one of the best displays by any driver in the 2025 Australian Grand Prix - and the best debut by a mile.
After the race, Wolff sounded unsurprised by how well Antonelli drove - saying Mercedes "always knew the potential" and understood very well Antonelli's capacity to perform under pressure.
It’s no surprise to us at The Race either, given Antonelli has shone in wet conditions before. His maiden Mercedes F1 test in Austria put him on the map. His speed in the rain turned heads, but his maturity and humility were also underlined by that run in April 2024.
His 2024 F2 sprint race win at Silverstone (above) also deserves mention; at no point during that contest was there a suspicion that Antonelli was fazed by the torrid conditions.
The only surprise, perhaps, is that Antonelli immediately delivered such a display so quickly in his Mercedes F1 career.
