F1 News: Kimi Antonelli dividing a nation as older generation fall in love with Mercedes star

Kimi Antonelli

Kimi Antonelli dividing a nation as older generation fall in love with F1 star

Ferrari or Antonelli? That is the question

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Tuesday 31 March 2026 20:54

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Kimi Antonelli has restored hope to F1 fans in Italy, but will their devotion to Ferrari waver as the season progresses?

"Young, charming, and successful. And with a clean-cut, boy-next-door face that even mothers and grandmothers, perhaps casually following motor racing, like."

Surprisingly, these aren't the words of a mother trying to butter up their future son-in-law, but those of Italian media outlet La Gazzetta dello Sport after Antonelli's second grand prix victory at the Japanese Grand Prix.

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Antonelli has given Italy cause to celebrate, not only securing back-to-back victories, but also jumping to the top of the drivers' standings thanks to George Russell's fourth place finish.

Italy's first love will always be a Ferrari however, who just so happen to be Mercedes' nearest rivals and are looking to challenge their domination as 2026 progresses.

And reports from Italy suggest there will be divided loyalties this year, with some of the tifosi being tempted over to Mercedes' side by the teenage sensation. As Gazzetta write: "The question 'Who do you support in F1?' no longer has such an automatic answer."

When was the last Italian world champion?

Before Antonelli, the last Italian driver to win an F1 race was Giancarlo Fisichella at the 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix, and the last to win back-to-back was Alberto Ascari back in 1953.

You also have to go all the way back to Ascari's time in F1 to find an Italian winner of the drivers' championship, who was the last champion to hail from the country in 1953.

Ascari also won the title in 1952 and Giuseppe 'Nino' Farina is the only other F1 champion, the first driver ever to claim a world championship title in 1950.

Since then, the last proper contender for the title was Michael Alboreto in 1985, who finished second in a Ferrari to McLaren's Alain Prost.

Alboreto won twice that year and stood on a further six occasions, leading the championship until Round 11 at Zandvoort, but four consecutive retirements at the end of the 1985 cruelly denied him the F1 title.

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