Kimi Antonelli: The (initially overlooked) historical detail that makes his World Championship even more special
The world title won by Kimi Antonelli in 2026 brought an end to a seventy-three-year wait for Italian motorsport. Since last Sunday, the young Mercedes driver’s achievement and his entry into the Formula 1 elite have been rightly celebrated, but there is a curious historical detail that has gone almost unnoticed yet makes his success even more remarkable. Antonelli, in fact, is the first Italian driver ever to win the World Championship driving a car designed and built according to existing F1 regulations.
The first Italian world champion (and the first overall, since it was the inaugural season of the World Championship) was Nino Farina in 1950. However, the Alfa Romeo 158 with which he won the title had not been designed in accordance with Formula 1 regulations. The famous “Alfetta” was, in fact, a car introduced in 1938, more than ten years before the World Championship was established. If anything, it was the newly introduced Formula 1 regulations that had to adapt to a type of single-seater that already existed and was well-established in the racing circuits of the time.
Even more remarkable is the case of Alberto Ascari. The legendary champion from Milan won the World Championships in 1952 and 1953, dominating the international scene behind the wheel of the Ferrari 500—a single-seater that, however, belonged to the Formula 2 category. At the time, in fact, the scarcity of cars compliant with the main regulations prompted organizers to include F2 cars in the World Championship as well. In effect, Ascari won two perfectly legitimate world titles, but without driving a Formula 1 car in the technical sense we attribute to the term today.
The intrigue doesn’t end there. In 1953, Ascari also had the opportunity to drive a true Ferrari designed according to Formula 1 regulations—the Ferrari 553—but only during practice sessions for the Italian Grand Prix. He therefore did not get to use that single-seater on the path that led him to win his second consecutive world title.
For these reasons, Antonelli’s triumph takes on an even more special significance in the history of Italian motorsports. Farina remains the first Formula 1 world champion, and Ascari the most successful Italian driver in the world championship’s hall of fame with two titles, but the Bolognese driver can claim a distinction all his own: being the first Italian to win the world title behind the wheel of a single-seater conceived, developed, and built specifically to compete in Formula 1 according to established regulations.
A detail for enthusiasts and historians of the series, perhaps. But it’s also one of those interesting facts that make an achievement—destined to occupy a special place in the history of Italian sports—even more fascinating.
