MONZA, Italy — Throughout this season, Toto Wolff, the Mercedes team principal, has urged caution in overhyping Kimi Antonelli.Even as Antonelli tore up F1’s record book, becoming the sport’s youngest pole-sitter, youngest championship leader and second-youngest race winner, Wolff wanted to calm expectations. Five straight wins to seize control of the title race early in the campaign still wasn’t enough for him to get carried away.This was a teenager in his second season, Wolff would stress. Comparisons to the sport’s greats had to be kept in check to avoid unnecessary pressure.Yet, after Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix, where Antonelli — who turned 20 just 14 days ago — went from 19th on the grid to score a remarkable victory, Wolff used a phrase that summed up why this is a talent who is set apart from his rivals.“I thought one of the two is going to win,” Wolff told reporters post-race, also referring to his other driver George Russell. The case for Russell was obvious to Wolff, given he started second on the grid.“Or Kimi, because he was going to walk over water here in Monza.”After Saturday’s qualifying, Wolff had a feeling Antonelli could produce magic Sunday despite being relegated toward the back of the grid due to an engine-change penalty. There was something about his attitude and behavior that suggested such a result was brewing.Wolff spoke to Antonelli’s father, Marco, who saw the same thing in his son.“These are the moments where you can see (from) how the weekend is panning out through the sessions that a special moment could come,” Wolff said.And it came in spectacular fashion.In the previous 76 years of the world championship, only once before had a driver started lower than 19th and gone on to win a race — that was when John Watson took victory from 22nd at Long Beach in 1983.But the form of both Mercedes’ car, which was always expected to dominate at Monza thanks to its powerful engine and impressive engine electric energy deployment system, and Antonelli, who has made few mistakes through his sophomore season, meant attention had to be paid to his progression in any case.By the time the race was red flagged on Lap 3 of 53 for Charles Leclerc’s huge crash at the Parabolica corner, Antonelli was already up to 12th. A lightning restart then put him eighth after the first lap back racing, and sixth another lap after that.Aware of his teammate’s progression, Russell knew that Antonelli was about to factor into the fight for the win. Antonelli said he started thinking about it earlier, revealing post-race the thought had first entered his mind during the red flag stoppage.Charles Leclerc’s crashed Ferrari early in the 2026 Italian GP. (Peter Fox / Getty Images)The signs were there all along. Antonelli was rapid through practice and the first two stages of qualifying, before sacrificing his Q3 chances, given his penalty, to give Russell a slipstream and play the team game. This was necessary because the margins between all the Q3 runners was so tight, even with Mercedes’ overall pace edge.As has been true for much of this season, here Antonelli looked more comfortable than Russell, but overcoming such a huge grid penalty made victory still seem a long shot.But the way in which Antonelli scythed through the field at Monza, making overtake after overtake without hampering his progress, was the truly spectacular part of his performance.His back-and-forth scrap with Russell for the lead was only defused when Mercedes told its drivers to focus on pulling a gap to the chasing Max Verstappen behind, fearing they may lose time fighting, before a Virtual Safety Car (VSC) activation led to Antonelli pitting and dropping back again.Wolff said Antonelli’s ability to clamber up the order so quickly was a trait he recognized.“We’ve seen it with other great ones in the past,” Wolff said. “Lewis (Hamilton), who did it, that’s what he’s shown today. There’s just no stopping (him). When a driver and a car are one, then there’s nothing that can stop them.”According to statistics displayed on F1’s global broadcast feed, Antonelli had 25 overtakes on the board — equivalent to passing the entire field and more — entering the closing stages when he was hunting down Russell.Russell was not stopped under the VSC, as he was running on the hard compound that Wolff called a “forever tire.” But Antonelli was able to make up for the 15-second time loss in the pits with superior pace.His race engineer, Peter Bonnington, spent the final stint updating Antonelli lap after lap on the gap to Russell and what his times needed to be to catch up. Antonelli did not miss a beat, hitting his marks every time.With six laps to go, it was up to him to do the rest. “I’ll leave you to it,” Bonnington said, trusting Antonelli could get the job done.He did, albeit at the second attempt. A brief scare arrived in his first try at passing Russell when he hit some loose asphalt at Turn 2, where the track was breaking up under the fierce Italian sun. Antonelli briefly thought the race could have been lost.As Wolff put it: “That could have ended up in a disaster when it comes to the race result, and we would have looked like idiots.”But just a few minutes later, with Russell’s tires heavily worn and vibrating badly, Antonelli breezed by on the run to Monza’s Ascari chicane, for overtake 26. It was the clincher for a victory that will surely prove to be one of the defining moments not only of his season, but perhaps his career.Kimi Antonelli walks onto the famous Monza podium after winning the 2026 Italian GP. (Guido De Bortoli / Getty Images)It was Antonelli’s first home win as an F1 driver and with it he became the first Italian to win this grand prix since 1966.In Ferrari country, where the grandstands are swathes of red, he’s given a new reason for fans to sing the national anthem, Canto degli italiani. Young and immensely likeable, Italy has a new favorite athlete.Although the sea of fans under the Monza podium — which towers over the race track, unlike at many other circuits — may have rued not seeing a Ferrari driver up there, they were happy to bring the atmosphere for Antonelli.“This is the most special podium of the season,” Antonelli said. “To see all the fans on the straight, it’s just incredible. Being at home, it adds that little bit extra. (I’m) super happy with that.”For Antonelli’s hopes of smashing the record to become F1’s youngest world champion, it is also a hugely significant win. The grid penalty was a huge opportunity for Russell to cut what was a 59-point deficit going into the weekend, only for that margin to increase to 66 points leaving Monza.Russell also has to serve his own engine-penalty grid drop at some point in the coming races, meaning no matter how positively he felt his own performance was this weekend — and he was very fast — it’s an opportunity lost.This was the year he had started as the heavy title favorite, given Antonelli’s inexperience and rookie struggles, but his title hopes have slipped further away.Antonelli didn’t want to dwell on championship talk. “We’ve seen in this season how things can change very quickly,” he said, referring to Mercedes reliability issues that led to big points swings with Russell.“On my side, I just need to take one race at a time, just try to maximize every result, every opportunity I get, and then we’ll see what happens at the end of the year.”Russell has maintained for some time now he’s not giving thought to the championship. Wolff’s reply when he was asked if the title was now decided was: “I don’t know. It’s too early to say.”Kimi Antonelli climbs from the wreckage of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes during first practice at the 2024 Italian GP. (Gabriel Bouys / AFP / Getty Images)The added significance of Antonelli’s Monza win is rooted in his first time driving in a grand prix weekend at this track two years ago.Then, barely 18 and just announced as Hamilton’s replacement at Mercedes for 2025, he crashed on his second lap of a one-off practice session appearance; hardly a ringing endorsement of the talent Mercedes trusted to replace its greatest driver.Wolff spoke about that moment when speaking after the race, with a hint of emotion in his voice that he jokingly attributed to thinking about whether he’d get home in time for dinner. But he said this was a victory that will rank up there among the most memorable he’s experienced as a team principal.“It’s how the circle closed,” Wolff said. “Two years ago in FP1, it was probably the toughest moment in his career for himself and his family. A moment where everyone doubted, including himself.“Then two years later, it’s the biggest glory, the biggest moment of his career, that’s probably going to be one of his biggest moments overall in the future. Even if he wins another 200 grands prix, that one will always remain special.”Antonelli cemented another entry in F1’s history books with this win. But this is one that means so much more than a bit of sporting trivia. It’s another huge statement to the world of what he can do.Worryingly for his rivals, it could be just the start, a signal Antonelli gave when asked if this was the best race of his entire racing career.“The best one is yet to come,” Antonelli said. “But I feel like it was one of the best races I’ve done so far, and one that I will remember forever.”