A beaming Toto Wolff shared his thoughts on Kimi Antonelli becoming the youngest-ever F1 World Champion, as a third-place finish at the Mexico City GP was enough for the Mercedes driver to claim the 2026 Drivers’ title.
The 71-lap race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez needed Antonelli only to finish ninth to secure a maiden F1 crown, irrespective of where rivals Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes teammate George Russell finished.
Having set the fifth-fastest time in qualifying, the Italian started Sunday’s race from the second row on account of Max Verstappen’s grid penalty.
Antonelli managed his opening stint strongly—extending his set of fresh soft tyres beyond 40 laps and putting himself in contention for a podium. He pitted for the first time at the end of Lap 43 and switched to the medium compound.
The 20-year-old was running in third when Valtteri Bottas experienced a suspension failure and triggered the red flag on Lap 45. With the restart order taken from the control line at pit entry, he resumed the race in P4 on used softs.
Antonelli quickly regained a position with a bold move on Charles Leclerc—who had suffered a lock-up—into Turn 1 on the second lap after the restart. He took P3 at the chequered flag, securing his seventeenth podium of the campaign and, most importantly, the 2026 F1 Drivers’ Championship.
When Wolff realised that Antonelli would become the 2026 F1 Drivers’ Champion
Speaking in a print media session post-Mexico City GP, which saw Antonelli crowned as F1’s 36th World Champion, Toto Wolff reminisced about the 9-time race winner being a part of the Mercedes family since 2019 and the maturity he has shown while mounting a title campaign despite his young age.
“I don’t know if it’s the age, but for me, when he was there in the garage at the age of 11, it seems like a few years ago, not seven or eight years.
“And because he’s still a kid, we see this world champion in him and the maturity that he has shown and the way he went about [is commendable]. But all of us that have been on this journey, I still see the same kid.”
Asked which round of the 2026 season had convinced him that Antonelli was going to etch his name in F1 history, Wolff stated that the 20-year-old winning five straight races from China to Monaco had made him quite optimistic that the Mercedes protégé would lift the Drivers’ trophy as long as he had the car beneath him.
“The championship? You know, I’m so bad at remembering which race. I think there was no particular moment.
“It’s just when he was able to put race weekend after race weekend after race weekend. And I think, how many consecutive races did he win? Four or five? Five.
“Eventually, I knew that if we were able to provide him with the car, he’s going to win the championship.”
Wolff reveals why he didn’t find promoting Antonelli to F1 in 2025 risky
As to the criticism he had received last year over having potentially promoted Antonelli too soon, Toto Wolff weighed in on whether he feels vindicated now that the Bologna native has become the F1 Drivers’ Champion in only his sophomore season.
Revealing that he had already made up his mind about their 2025 driver line-up when Hamilton dropped the bombshell that he was leaving Mercedes for Ferrari, the Austrian explained why he was so confident about going out on a limb and giving Antonelli a full-time seat.
“People sometimes ask me, why do I take risks? And I always say, I only take calculated risks. Because calculated risks are the ones where the worst possible outcome is not going to change our lives in the team.
“When Lewis [Hamilton] came to my house that morning, I obviously knew what was happening. The moment he confirmed that he was going to Ferrari, instinctively I knew that Kimi was going to go in the car.
“This was at the beginning of his F2 season, just coming out of [Formula] Regional. I think I called Bradley [Lord] and James Allison and said, ‘Kimi’s in the car.’ They said, ‘What are you even talking about?’
“But we had the data. There was no confirmation needed anymore. He confirmed it by his success in karts, in F4 and in Regional, and the rest was just clear. It never seemed to be a risk for me.”
Wolff believes Antonelli’s 2026 F1 season and championship have silenced the doubters
Toto Wolff also addressed the steep learning curve Antonelli had faced during the 2025 F1 season and disclosed whether his biggest achievement was managing the Italian’s difficult first year in the sport.
The 54-year-old asserted that the naysayers had always been resentful voices outside the team and that the deluge of criticism never managed to instil any doubt about the 20-year-old’s potential in his mind.
“I never felt it [was] difficult because the team and Ola [Källenius] were always behind that decision. There was never doubt.
“The doubt came from outside. The doubt came from people that were partners to the team and are not anymore, from other teams, from other drivers that felt they should’ve gotten a shot, from the media.
“It started with, ‘you can’t be possibly serious of putting an 18-year-old in the car that’s Lewis Hamilton’s car’ to ‘he had an underwhelming Formula 2 season; he should do another year in Formula 2’.
“I proved that he’s actually good enough. Then putting him in the car, people saying, you know, ‘he shouldn’t be in a Mercedes, much, much pressure for him; why didn’t you try to achieve a deal with Williams, and give him, like George [Russell], a year, two or three to develop?’.
“And then these voices got obviously louder after nine consecutive races without a point. Suddenly, the ‘I told you so’ was getting more oxygen.
“For us, for me, there was never a single doubt. It was the season that I expected to happen. That it was at least a two-year project, where the second year needed to confirm what we saw in him. And I guess today we’re sitting here and we have the confirmation.”
How Antonelli’s rise feels like a personal triumph to Wolff in comparison to Hamilton’s titles
With regard to Mercedes nurturing Antonelli since he was 12 years old and how this milestone of guiding the youngster to championship glory compares to the titles won with Hamilton, Toto Wolff said that the two eras evoke different sentiments.
Elaborating on how they would always look back on their incredible achievements with Hamilton—whose relevance now extends beyond the sport—with a sense of pride, the Austrian remarked that Antonelli’s youth has made this new chapter in Mercedes’s history rejuvenating.
“It’s different.
“The championships with Lewis were absolutely incredible and rewarding. We were part of Lewis’s history, of the greatest champion, and that we would look back many years to come and say [that] we’ve been world champions with Lewis Hamilton.
“And this is something I’m very much still thinking about. He is one that stayed relevant and is very much culturally relevant beyond Formula 1. So, that was very, very special championships that I would have for my whole life with him.”
“And this one is different. For me, he [Kimi] is still the kid that hasn’t even changed visually a lot. Is that how you say it?
“And it’s so refreshing. I tried to get hold of him a few weeks ago and said, ‘Where’s Kimi?’ ‘Kimi, for his birthday, he’s in the water park!’ As long as we can all help to preserve it, he is intertwined with Mercedes, and that’s also great to see.”
Wolff claims Antonelli is the new benchmark for what a modern F1 driver and champion should be like
Furthermore, Toto Wolff passionately argued that Antonelli’s title is a turning point for the sport and its culture—proving that cutthroat, selfish driving and insolent attitude are no longer the indisputable trademarks of a modern F1 driver and World Champion.
“This notion of win at all costs; being selfish, opportunistic, and ruthless for your own benefit, that model of racing driver has died.
“We have a new champion that represents values like humility, integrity, loyalty, respect. Being himself. Should be a role model for many other young drivers in junior formulas. And should be a role model for the few entitled ones in Formula 1, the endless moaners on the radio, the ones that complain, the ones that crash.
“Look at this kid of 20 years and then think what we can do in order to improve. That’s the message to these kids. That is how the FIA, that Mohammed [Ben Sulayem], that Stefano [Domenicali], that’s how I would want to see racing drivers in the future.
“That is modern Formula 1. Kimi represents the modern Formula 1 driver. Because of those values. Not only because of his talent. That comes. The talent is there with everyone, but you gotta be a good person too. He has demonstrated that you can beat everyone out there by being a good person.”
