Inside the Mercedes garage with F1’s new world champion

Mercedes mechanics have learned to watch their backs. Not because of the dangers of a pitstop, but because of Kimi Antonelli. Formula 1’s newly crowned world champion has a rather unusual habit. He approaches members of his crew, greets them and, when they least expect it, gives their nipples a pinch – so nobody appears to be safe!

It is just one of the many practical jokes through which the 20-year-old Italian has developed a special relationship with the people who work on his W17. But behind the mischief, seemingly so far removed from the image of a world champion, lies something much more significant.

Success has roots that are not always visible. To understand them, you sometimes have to look beyond what happens on the track. In Antonelli’s case, that means listening to the people who share the work, pressure and emotions of a grand prix weekend with him. 

Their accounts paint a picture of a young man who has earned something that even a world championship cannot guarantee: the trust and respect of those around him. It is a relationship that developed naturally, rooted in an attitude Antonelli learned long before reaching F1, when he accompanied his father Marco to races with his own team. Growing up around workshops and racing circuits taught him a valuable lesson: before becoming a racing driver, you have to learn how to be part of a team.

“When he comes into the garage, it’s quite a show,” said Nathan Tupper, who works on the power unit of Antonelli’s car. “He grabs everyone, pinches people’s nipples, slaps them all over and generally causes chaos. At the end of the day, he’s 20 years old. That’s just Kimi.”

Ash Jones, the second senior mechanic on Antonelli’s car, agrees: “There are so many practical jokes that it would be difficult to list them all. He comes over, says hello and then gives you a pinch. That’s how he jokes around with us. He likes having a good relationship with everyone, laughing and having fun together.” 

The jokes do not even stop when the circumstances would seem to demand maximum concentration. Tom Mason, Antonelli’s number one mechanic, has seen it countless times: “It always makes me laugh watching him getting ready to get into the car before qualifying. He’s still joking around, grabbing the guys, tickling them. Even when the pressure is enormous, he’s there having fun. He’s incredibly relaxed.”

The driver who has displayed such remarkable maturity on the track is the same young man who, the moment he walks into the garage, becomes a 20-year-old eager to have some fun. Birthdays are another occasion for the Mercedes mechanics to be on their guard, as Antonelli has introduced a tradition of celebrating his colleagues by covering their faces in whipped cream.

Callum Wooldridge, who works on the front end of Antonelli’s car, explained why the ritual has become so popular within the team. “When you work in Formula 1, you spend so much time away from home that sometimes you end up celebrating your birthday during a grand prix weekend,” he said.

George Russell, Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Toto Wolff, Mercedes

Photo by: Hector Vivas / Formula 1 via Getty Images

“It’s not always easy. Sometimes you really miss being at home. Kimi started this thing with whipped cream in people’s faces, and I don’t think there are many other garages in the paddock where something like that happens. It’s funny. It happened to me on my birthday in September last year.”

The practical jokes have helped create an environment in which the relationship between the driver and his crew has become unusually close. “It’s one of the best atmospheres I’ve ever experienced working with a driver,” said Jones. “With Kimi, you feel completely comfortable. It’s like talking to one of the guys you work with every day. There’s no awkwardness, no tension when you speak to him.”

Antonelli’s race engineer Peter Bonnington actively encourages that sense of familiarity. “Bono encourages us to interact with him, to have a laugh,” Mason explained. “Kimi is very approachable and loves joking around with the guys. It’s a really good environment to work in.”

The early tests, the crashes and the kid in the blue cap

To discover another side of Antonelli, one must go back to 2024, when Mercedes began the testing programme designed to prepare him for his F1 debut. Franck Bougeard was one of the mechanics involved in those sessions and his first encounter with Antonelli came in the spring, during a test in Austria. Kimi was just 17, wearing a blue cap with a rather unruly head of hair sticking out from underneath.

“I remember all that hair coming out of his cap, looking a bit messy,” said Bougeard with a smile. “He really looked like a little kid. And there he was, about to drive a Formula 1 car.” Bougeard’s memories also include Antonelli’s early crashes, as the young Italian began exploring the limits of an F1 machine.

“At Abu Dhabi, he crashed and damaged the chassis. Luckily, we’d brought a spare one, which is something we hardly ever do at those tests,” he said. “I don’t even know why we’d brought it, but thank goodness we had, because we needed it.”

Then came Monza, and another accident. “At that point I was starting to think, ‘brilliant, every time this kid leaves the garage, we’re going to end up changing a chassis!’,” he added. “He was very quick, but sometimes he pushed too hard. He needed to learn where the limit of the car was, and a few crashes were part of that process. That’s exactly why we were there, to give him the opportunity to learn.” 

Antonelli crashed on his F1 session debut in Monza, 2024

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

After his accident at Monza, Antonelli returned to the garage visibly upset about the extra work he had caused. “He kept apologising,” Bougeard recalled. “He was saying how sorry he was for having destroyed the car again. I told him it wasn’t a problem and that the important thing was that he was OK. Then I asked him: ‘What did your dad say?'”

Kimi’s answer has stayed with the mechanic ever since.

“He gave me a telling-off for half an hour!,” he said. Bougeard also wanted to know how Antonelli’s mother had reacted. Kimi explained that she had been terribly frightened, to the point of tears. So here was a teenager already capable of driving an F1 car, yet still dealing with the sort of family situations familiar to countless young people.

His father telling him off, his mother worrying about him, and Kimi returning to the mechanics to apologise. But Marco Antonelli also features in another memorable episode, as during a test in Abu Dhabi, after learning that his son had crashed into the barriers, he rushed towards the scene of the accident, even crossing the circuit to reach him.

“Marco was on the other side of the track. When Kimi crashed, he immediately set off to get to him,” said Bougeard. “I had to speak to him afterwards. I said: ‘Marco, there are professionals here, there are ambulances. The last thing I want is for you to get run over by an ambulance while you’re crossing the circuit!'”

Marco admitted he had been wrong. But those early accidents are more than just amusing memories. Tom Mason recalled that when Antonelli joined the Mercedes race team at the beginning of 2025, one of the young driver’s biggest concerns was creating too much work for his mechanics.

“Whenever he made a mistake, he felt incredibly bad about it,” said Mason. “He kept apologising for the damage to the car and for all the work he’d caused us. Eventually, I told him he needed to stop worrying about that.”

Mason remembered exactly what he wanted the young driver to understand. “I told him: ‘You don’t need to apologise to us. If something goes wrong, you don’t have to worry about the car or the work we have to do. ‘We’re happy to do our jobs. As long as you give everything you’ve got, we’ll do exactly the same for you.'” 

Antonelli endured many a tough lesson before becoming world champion

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

There had inevitably been some uncertainty before Antonelli arrived, as Mercedes was saying goodbye to Lewis Hamilton after a hugely successful partnership and handing his car to an 18-year-old rookie.

“We didn’t really know what to expect,” Mason admitted. “We’d worked with Lewis for so many years and knew his habits inside out. With Kimi, everything was going to be new. I wondered how many accidents he might have, how long it would take him to adapt and how much extra work he might create for us.”

There were difficult moments, particularly during the 2025 season. But Mason stressed that even at his lowest points, Antonelli never brought tension into the garage. “Spa was particularly difficult for him,” he added. “But we weren’t angry. If anything, we felt sorry for him because we could see how much he was suffering. He was so young and had an enormous amount of pressure on his shoulders.”

But one quality has particularly impressed Antonelli’s number one mechanic: his ability to move on quickly from disappointment. “He can have a terrible weekend, or a practice session where everything goes wrong,” he said. “When he gets out of the car, he’s angry. You can clearly see it. But the next time you meet him, he’s already completely different. He comes back into the garage full of enthusiasm, ready to start again. He doesn’t carry that negativity around with him. It’s almost as if he starts again from zero every time.”

For Mason, that attitude makes a considerable difference to the way the team operates. “If a driver is constantly in a bad mood, the people working with him eventually end up feeling the same way,” he claimed. “With Kimi, it’s the opposite. He’s so positive that his enthusiasm rubs off on everyone. For me, having to coordinate the work of the guys, that’s an ideal situation.”

Two days to learn everyone’s name

There is another detail on which all five mechanics agree: Antonelli knows the people who work on his car personally, and he learned their names remarkably quickly. “That’s one of the things that impressed me most,” said Ash Jones. “He knows everyone in the garage. Not just their names, but details about their personal lives too. If you tell him something about yourself, he remembers it.”

Tom Mason remembered an episode from the days before Antonelli officially joined the race team. “When we found out Kimi was coming, I spoke to Rosa, his press officer,” he said. “I suggested organising something so that we could all get to know him. Rosa told me Kimi was really enthusiastic about the idea, but first he wanted to do something with the guys who’d worked with him during testing.” 

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

Antonelli had no intention of forgetting the people who had accompanied him through the previous months. “He was very conscious of that,” said Mason. “He wanted to make sure he met up with the people from the testing programme first, the guys who had been with him up to that point. Then he would get to know everyone else.”

And when he finally arrived in the race team’s garage, the introductions were remarkably quick. “After a couple of days, he already knew everyone’s name,” added Mason. “And that’s incredible when you think about how much he had to learn at the same time: a new car, how the team operated, all the procedures, working with the engineers. Yet he still found the time to get to know every single person.”

It is an attitude that seems to run through the Antonelli family. Nathan Tupper explained that Marco had also developed a spontaneous, affectionate relationship with the mechanics. “You can be working away and suddenly someone comes up and gives you a hug from behind. You turn around and discover it’s Marco,” he said. “That’s just how he is. They’re a very open, affectionate family. They make you feel part of their world.”

Callum Wooldridge remembered the young driver he first met at the beginning of 2025: “He was still a little shy and needed time to settle in. As the months went by, he opened up more and more. Today he’s not shy at all. He jokes with everyone.

“But really, he’s still the same person. He’s just learned to feel at home. He’s part of the family now. He behaves exactly like the rest of us. And the nice thing is that his attitude doesn’t change depending on the results. Whether he’s had a good day or a bad one, he’s always the same kid.”

Melbourne: When the mechanics worked a miracle

Yet life in the Mercedes garage is not all jokes and laughter, as Jones recalled what happened in Melbourne at the start of the 2026 season. Antonelli had badly damaged his car during FP3, leaving the mechanics facing a race against time to get it ready for qualifying.

“After qualifying, I went to speak to him,” Jones said. “He told me: ‘I’ve no idea how you managed to get my car back on track.’ He genuinely couldn’t believe it!” So Antonelli’s second place on the grid made the day even more special.

“He was incredibly grateful for what we’d done. He just kept thanking us,” he said. “That’s something that has really stayed with me.” It is an episode that helps explain just how personally the Mercedes mechanics have experienced Antonelli’s journey to the world championship.

“When Kimi has a bad day, we feel bad too,” said Wooldridge. “Whether the problem is down to him or the car doesn’t really matter. We’re so close that we all go through the same emotions together. It’s like being on a rollercoaster.” 

Antonelli’s crash during FP3 in Melbourne

Photo by: Mark Thompson / Getty Images

For Jones, the turning point in believing Antonelli could genuinely win the world championship came at Monza, where the Italian sensationally fought his way to victory from 19th on the grid. Wooldridge, meanwhile, chose Austin, where Antonelli converted an unexpected pole position into a victory delivered with remarkable maturity.

Nathan Tupper’s most vivid memory is the emotion of Antonelli’s maiden grand prix win in China – the race after Australia – whereas Bougeard, who first met Antonelli when he was still a teenager taking his first steps in an F1 car, prefers to look at the entire journey.

“It’s incredible to think how much he’s grown in such a short space of time,” he said. “We knew he had talent, but I never imagined he’d come this far, this quickly.”

A world champion who is still a kid at heart

There is one remark from Bougeard that perhaps sums up Antonelli better than any other. “It’s difficult not to like him,” he claimed. “Even if you woke up one morning thinking you really didn’t want to put up with Kimi that day, the moment you see him, you change your mind. He’s got a great sense of humour and loves teasing people. He gives you the feeling that he’s genuinely enjoying what he does.”

Antonelli’s story is full of contrasts. The kid with the messy hair who turned up for his first F1 tests. The young driver that apologised profusely after destroying a chassis, while his father told him off and his mother worried about him. And the 20-year-old who is now the youngest world champion, but still wanders around the garage playing practical jokes on his mechanics.

Antonelli has grown up. He has learned to handle pressure and earned authority within the team, without losing the spontaneity that characterised him when he first joined the Mercedes programme. His mechanics have watched an extraordinary talent develop. They have rebuilt his cars after accidents, shared his disappointments, celebrated his first victories and experienced the tension of a championship battle that would have seemed impossible only a few months earlier.

Then, on Sunday evening in Mexico City, came the hugs and the tears. It was not simply the joy of a team celebrating a world championship. It was the emotion of people who had watched a young man grow up, got to know him and, somewhere along the way, become genuinely fond of him.

The world title is just the next step on that journey.

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