Who is Marco Antonelli? The racing career of Kimi's father

Kimi Antonelli is on the verge of his first Formula 1 world championship. At just 20 years old and only in his second season, he heads to Mexico City needing just ninth place to become Formula 1‘s youngest-ever world champion – and the first Italian to win the title since Alberto Ascari in 1953. When that inevitably happens, one of the first people he’ll look for is his father.

Marco Antonelli has been a regular in the Mercedes garage for the last two years, and one of the first people that Kimi races to after a grand prix victory.

Alongside Mercedes’ team boss Toto Wolff, he’s been a key rock and motivator in Kimi’s corner. Just like Max Verstappen and his father Jos, Kimi’s dad also has a racing past. He also still runs his own teams in GT and junior single-seaters.

But what is Antonelli senior’s racing past, and how much has he had a steer on his son’s career? Here is all you need to know about Marco Antonelli’s career, his teams and his influence on the soon-to-be world champion.

Who is Marco Antonelli?

Marco Antonelli was born in Bologna on 18 July 1964 and has now been involved in motorsport for around four decades. In that time he’s jumped between disciplines, with stints as a touring car driver, then as a GT racer and finally team owner. He married Veronica Pomaro in 1997, and the couple have two children: Andrea Kimi, born in 2006, and a younger daughter, Maggie.

The older Antonelli’s base is San Marino, where he runs two outfits: Antonelli Motorsport, which he founded in 1993, and AKM Motorsport, set up in 2020. That name, if you hadn’t spotted it already, is made up of the initials of his children.

Despite the obvious connection between the son of a racing driver being named Kimi during the peak era of Kimi Räikkönen, Marco insists that his son’s name was suggested by Marco’s friend Enrico Bertaggia, a former F1 driver who’d raced in the same Italian touring car championship.

The Superturismo years

Marco started racing in the mid-1980s, joining the Italian Superturismo Championship in 1992 where he raced an AB Motorsport BMW M3 and finished 13th in the standings. He returned in 1993 and 1994 and made a final one-off appearance in 1996. In all, he started 23 Superturismo races without finishing higher than sixth.

There was a brief outing in the European Touring Car Championship in 2002, but the big break never came. According to Kimi, that was down to finance rather than talent.

From driver to team boss

Marco remained in racing, by setting up his own team, Antonelli Motorsport. In 2011 it took its first victories in the International GT Sprint Series, at Spa and Mugello, in a season Marco also raced in himself.

The team’s biggest success came in 2018. Daniel Zampieri and Giacomo Altoè won the GT3 class of the Italian GT Championship in an Antonelli Motorsport Lamborghini Huracán GT3, sealing it with a second place in Mugello. The pair then won the Pro class at Lamborghini’s World Final at Vallelunga a few weeks later.

In addition to being a team owner, Marco kept racing. The older Antonelli finished second in the Am class of the 2017 Lamborghini Super Trofeo Middle East with three wins and took podiums in the International GT Open in 2021 and 2022.

Marco’s other venture, AKM Motorsport, has since competed in Italian F4 and the Formula Winter Series. In 2023 Marco and Kimi launched an AKM karting team together, with Kimi coaching when his racing schedule allowed.

Why didn’t Marco want Kimi to race?

Unsurprisingly, Kimi Antonelli’s early years revolved around motorsport. His mother Veronica said the younger Antonelli was in the team’s garage at a month old, sleeping in his pram, while Marco told how he once sneaked a young Kimi into the paddock at Hockenheim.

Despite this background, Marco wasn’t keen on his son racing seriously. Speaking to Sky Sports in Austin last weekend, he explained that the family simply couldn’t afford to fund a career all the way to the top. “We’re people who work normally,” he said.

However, Kimi’s obvious talent, after first driving a kart at five and a half forced a rethink.

When did Marco know Kimi was special?

Marco’s favourite story about his son involves a Lamborghini Super Trofeo car at Adria. Kimi was 10 and sat on his father’s lap: Marco worked the pedals, while Kimi steered and changed gear.

Marco explained that they built up the pace lap by lap until he was braking from just under 200mph at the end of the straight. The car snapped into oversteer, Kimi caught it, and Marco decided it was time to stop because it had become dangerous. When he watched the video back, he came to a simple conclusion: “Maybe he has something special.”

According to Marco, Kimi’s childhood dream wasn’t Formula 1; he wanted to race in the DTM. German touring car series.

Ferrari or Mercedes?

Being Italian and growing up a short drive from Maranello, Ferrari was the obvious destination for the young talent and it very nearly happened. According to Marco, Kimi was spotted by Massimo Rivola, then head of the Ferrari Driver Academy. He even tried the academy’s simulator at Maranello aged 11, before then team principal Maurizio Arrivabene decided he was too young for the programme.

Just a few months later, at the end of 2017, Toto Wolff called, and by 2019 Kimi was a member of the Mercedes junior programme. After that, the team supported him through karting and single-seaters – something both father and son say the family could never have managed alone.

How tough was Marco on Kimi?

Comparisons with the Verstappens are inevitable, and Kimi has made them himself. Speaking before his F1 debut in 2024, he said his father was strict, especially in karting, though nowhere near as strict as Jos Verstappen. He added that he later understood why, and was grateful for it.

The critiques haven’t stopped now that Kimi is on the brink of his first world championship. After Kimi won at Spa in July, on his father’s birthday weekend, one of the first things Marco said was “congrats, but…”, followed by a threat to wring his neck like a chicken if he picked up another needless track limits warning.

Kimi is clear about how much he leans on him. “My father is like my rock,” he said in Hungary, explaining that they’ve debriefed together after sessions since his karting days.

What happens next?

If Kimi finishes ninth or higher in Mexico, Marco will watch his son become the youngest Formula 1 champion of all time. At the same time, parallels between the Antonellis and the Vertappens will be even harder to ignore – even though Marco often says that it’s too early to compare his son with a four-time champion.