The leafy glades of Imola’s public park play host this weekend to the opening round of the 2023 Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, and the two races – one on Saturday, one on Sunday – will properly capture the attention of single-seater aficionados and talent spotters.
Every now and then a young driver comes along surrounded by a massive buzz: think Max Verstappen in the 2014 Formula 3 European Championship; Mika Hakkinen in British F3 in 1990; or a certain Ayrton Senna da Silva in the early 1980s. And now we have one again.
Like Verstappen, Andrea Kimi Antonelli is 16 years old as he embarks upon his maiden pan-European championship in cars. Unlike Verstappen, who did not become a Red Bull Junior until the middle of his F3 season, the Italian has the patronage of a top Formula 1 team in the form of Mercedes. And also unlike Verstappen, he already has one full season in cars under his belt; one in which he won no fewer than 26 races.
Antonelli makes the graduation, for which he remains with Prema Racing, as the reigning Italian Formula 4 champion, the final German F4 title winner, and also the F4 Motorsport Games gold medallist. What’s more, again under the guidance of Prema, he’s already become a champion in 2023 after a hotly contested FRegional Middle East Championship.
The Bolognese moved under the wing of the Mercedes F1 team at the age of 12. The squad’s junior driver chief – its Helmut Marko if you like – is Frenchman Gwenael Lagrue, who has been in Prema’s orbit since he managed Guillaume Moreau in the old F3 Euro Series.
He then went on to be a prime mover at the Gravity Sport Management/Lotus F1 Junior stable, where he guided Esteban Ocon from karting to the European F3 crown with Prema in 2014. After he joined Mercedes in 2015, Lagrue was key to Ocon arriving in F1, signed up George Russell, provided considerable help to Alex Albon, and has also placed more of the Three-Pointed Star’s juniors at Prema, including Frederik Vesti (now in FIA F2) and Paul Aron (FIA F3).
Ask Prema boss Rene Rosin about the arrival of Antonelli at his squad in the summer of 2021, and he acknowledges: “With Gwen we’ve always got a good relationship. When he was asking me about Kimi, of course it became everything easy, because he’s one of the most promising junior drivers, and we always want to work with young drivers, even more if he’s Italian.”
Source: Autosport