Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes race engineer, Peter “Bono” Bonnington, reflected on their time working together after the 20-year-old secured his maiden title with a third-place finish at the 2026 F1 Mexico City GP, delivering the team’s 10th WDC overall.
Bono took the time to speak to Sky Sports F1 during Mercedes’ post-race celebration. Asked about Antonelli’s progress as a driver—from crashing out of his FP1 debut at Monza, to becoming world champion just two years later—the experienced race engineer highlighted that it was a team effort to achieve this goal.
“I don’t want to take all the credit,” Bono told the media on Sunday.
“Of course there’s been… it’s been a really long journey there’s been so many people involved in this.
“I am just part of this chapter. Obviously we had the TPC work with him, the F2, karting, so there’d be so many people involved in it and it’s not just down to me. This year there’s such a… it’s a great car and we have a great team with us so I’m not taking all the credit at all.”
Bono reflects on his relationship with Antonelli at Mercedes
Bono—who found himself in the spotlight during his long and incredibly fruitful F1 partnership with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes—also discussed the close working relationship he developed with Antonelli, describing working with the young Italian as a rewarding experience.
“Yeah maybe, maybe so,” the 51-year-old engineer said when told he appears to have a good approach to working with Antonelli.
He joked, “Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment, I put up with the pranks, I put up with the water pistols.
“So yeah, it’s a really good experience to be able to take a young talent and mold him in the way that you want him. There’s no preconceived ideas, he’s just a sponge and he’ll be able to soak up all that information, that’s one thing he’s really done is just learn so quickly. That first year was just a year of learning and this one was a year of execution.”
Asked how Antonelli approached the Mexico City GP weekend, knowing that mathematically he could clinch the title at this round, Bono stated the nerves didn’t seem “too bad.”
He explained: “I think the big change was obviously with Austin. It was such a dominant drive, that was a real champion’s drive, and it was only at that point where we only started to slightly allow us to think that maybe this was on.
“People were calling it three races four races out if not even before but we wouldn’t let ourselves believe that because we just focus on one race at a time because you know that it can all turn to…the brown smelly stuff pretty easily.”
Antonelli was a “diamond in the rough” as Mercedes junior
While the Italian’s rapid rise ultimately exceeded expectations, Bono revealed that he had recognised something special in Antonelli from their earliest work together.
However, the engineer was also realistic about the amount of development the young driver would need, particularly when it came to adapting to the demands of racing in F1 full-time, especially as Antonelli skipped F3 on his way to the highest level of motorsport.
“I think the diamond in the rough is exactly the thing that I saw initially,” Bono recalled.
“I think this was in TPC, there was a diamond in the rough, but it was so rough… It’s testing previous cars, so this is basically we’re taking an old car and we’re just trying Kimi out, trying to prove it in an F2 car is okay, but I think you need to go to the next level to experience the power and the downforce, to see whether you can make that step.
“But he really did that and from there—okay, diamond in the rough, but he’s gonna need a lot of work. I didn’t think it would be this quick. I thought it’s gonna take us a few years—obviously we’ve got such a great teammate with George [Russell], such a strong driver and we’ll be able to learn off him. But coming into this year, I mean some exceptional performances and I think it was just as we were getting into Europe I thought ‘well, maybe, but let’s just keep it on the down-low and we’ll just crack on.’”
Bono hails Antonelli as Mercedes’ next generational talent
Bono also discussed how Antonelli compares with the seasoned F1 greats he worked with at Mercedes, most notably Hamilton and Michael Schumacher during his stint with the team in the early 2010s.
He explained that he had once believed drivers could only develop their skills through hours of experience behind the wheel, until he encountered those with innate talent.
“I think it’s the phrase that everyone uses, generational talent,” Bono replied when asked how he would categorise Antonelli.
“He, I think, is the next generational talent. I always used to believe in the 10,000 hour rule. I’ve said this so many times, 10,000 hour rule, always convinced it was a thing.
“And then I experienced greatness and then realised that actually talent is a real thing—that’s the extra two tenths that you just can’t learn from driving round and round and round. He’s got it, and Lewis [Hamilton] had it, Michael [Schumacher] had it.”
