the madszine

I often wonder how appropriate and responsible it is as a writer to project my thoughts and emotions onto real people who I do not know. It is the fine line that consumers and enjoyers of any media, whether that be sports, documentaries, or influencer videos, have to balance along. Comparable to most other entertainment industries in the current digital age, F1 social media posts, documentaries, and news articles frequently play up the emotional drama on the grid to encourage viewers to feel an attachment to the drivers. From their personality, to a cute pet, or a similar interest anything can encourage viewers to pick a driver as their ‘favourite.’ 

I decided Kimi Antonelli was my favourite F2 driver when I discovered he raced under the driver number 4. My lucky number is 4. 
​Not only does emotional attachment help with engagement in the sport – similar to supporting a football team – but it also helps with sales of individual drivers’ merchandise. It’s an easy emotional investment to fall into and yet also a slippery slope to damaging para-social relationships with drivers who owe us, and the people who write dramatised news about them, nothing.

To feel sympathy, affection, or worry, for someone who I have never met is a strange concept – and yet I cannot help but feel a constant rising trepidation for Mercedes Junior Team and F2 driver: Kimi Antonelli.

In many ways Kimi Antonelli’s rush through the ranks, skipping out of F3 altogether to join F2 in 2024 and now fast-tracked to begin F1 testing by a new regulation passed last week, reminds me fitfully of the career of Williams’ Logan Sargeant. However unlike Sargeant, Antonelli appears to be running in the footsteps of shoes too big to be filled – being coined as a wonder-kid and with some reporters and articles even comparing him to Ayrton Senna due to physical similarities.

Although Sargeant was the grand age of 21 when he began his F1 testing, as opposed to Antonelli’s (possible) 17,  his advancements through the pillars of F4, F3, and F2 surprisingly echoed a similar level of success.
In F4 Sargeant was the second-highest placed rookie of the season and was on the podium 15 out of 18 races. His career with Charouz in F3, although it lacked podiums, saw him gain 102 of the team’s 127 points in early 2021. Was it Williams’ desperation to replace their underperforming 2nd driver that saw them provide backing for Sargeant to advance to the F2 championship in mid-2021?

​If not it seems coincidental that just months later in October 2021 it was announced that Sargeant had joined the Williams Driver Academy and was partaking in pre-season and post-season testing for the Williams F1 team. Exactly a year later Sargeant made his official F1 practise debut with Williams at his home race of the United States Grand Prix and Williams’ principal Jost Capito confirmed that Sargeant would drive for Williams for the 2023 season replacing a struggling Nicholas Latifi. 

It may have surprised some readers to learn that Sargeant was a promising and talented driver during his time in F2/F3/F4 and it was that prospect of greatness that prompted Williams to pull him, far too quickly for his own good, up to F1. The key word there is surprising, Logan Sargeant had once been considered a top driver? I shook my head reading about his career simultaneously spectating the perceivable downfall he is suffering at the hands of Formula 1. Jupiter was once supposed to be a star but burned too bright and failed. Who could Logan Sargeant have been if he had progressed at his own pace? 

Oscar Piastri and Logan Sargeant advanced to F1 at the same time, the two 2023 rookies – one shone, the other burned out.

With my revelation that Logan Sargeant and Kimi Antonelli’s careers are truly more similar than I could have ever expected out in the world, there’s one final comparison to draw attention to. Sargeant and Antonelli’s crash onto the F1 scene alike in every way – except for one major thing. Sargeant was brought up to join Williams (a currently low-tier team) to replace Nicholas Latifi (an underperforming driver). The pressure on Sargeant, although high, was the same nerves as any driver joining F1 for the first time.
Antonelli meanwhile, would be being brought up to join Mercedes, and not only that, but he would be being brought up to replace 7-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton.

The pressure of expectation piled on this 17-year-old must be unimaginable because if he is anything other than phenomenal he has failed. To be labelled a wonder-kid, the next Max Verstappen, the saviour of Mercedes, that’s a lot riding on one, albeit talented, kid.
A young driver whose record, remember, is strikingly similar to now-struggling F1 driver Logan Sargeant. A young driver who must become World Champion, who must beat Max Verstappen, to become a star.

The actions of Toto Woolf passing up high-performing driver Carlos Sainz, whilst pushing for the age-restriction regulation change, and hinting that Antonelli ‘definitely plays a part’ in Mercedes’ future could all point towards one thing. Is Kimi Antonelli Toto Woolf’s own Project-Verstappen?