Exclusive: Guenther Steiner calls on Italy to finally show Kimi Antonelli 'love' and 'respect'

Guenther Steiner believes Kimi Antonelli has yet to receive the recognition he deserves from their own country.

Antonelli became Italy's first F1 champion in 73 years, since Alberto Ascari, and the sport's youngest at 20 years and 68 days, after finishing third in the Mexico City Grand Prix.

Former Haas team principal Steiner, who was born in Merano and now runs his own MotoGP team, put that wait into perspective when discussing what the achievement would mean for Italian motorsport.

"Seventy-three years! It's a bloody long time!" said Steiner, speaking exclusively to RacingNews365. "If you put the number on there, it's unbelievable that it's taken this long.

"And what does it mean [for Italy]? It means a lot. But even though Italy has not had a driver as world champion for so long, they've had Ferrari, and they still have Ferrari, which is the national team."

Steiner pointed to Ferrari's grip on Italian motorsport culture as the reason Antonelli's title has not yet captured the national imagination in the way it might elsewhere.

"I think we need to wait to see what it does because I sometimes think that Kimi doesn't get the respect he deserves from the country," he said.

"Obviously, the country is used to cheering for Ferrari, and not for one of their drivers because they've not had one for so long, or at least at world championship level.

"I think that a lot of people need to get used to it because, for them, they just see the Scuderia, which is what they follow, and Kimi deserves a little bit more support from the people there."

Steiner drew a comparison with Jannik Sinner, the Italian tennis player who has become a mainstream national hero despite an understated public style that initially drew scrutiny from parts of the Italian press.

"I mean, Italy now has two big champions, Jannik Sinner and Kimi Antonelli," he said. "Jannik gets a lot of love from the country, and I hope that Kimi will now get the same love as well."

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Antonelli's rise has been rapid. He joined Mercedes' junior programme in 2019, skipped Formula 3 entirely on his way through the junior categories, and was handed the seat vacated by Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari for 2025.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has previously urged the Italian media to avoid heaping excessive pressure on the youngster or drawing premature comparisons to figures such as Ayrton Senna.

Steiner, though, was full of praise for how Antonelli has handled his rookie season, in particular going up against George Russell, a driver he was quick to point out is no pushover.

"Amazing!" said Steiner of Antonelli's overall achievement this year. "I think we all knew that he was pretty good from what we saw last year, but there are a lot of talented drivers now.

"But how he has taken to his role at Mercedes and beaten George, and George is a good driver. He's no slouch.

"To race the way he has for a 20-year-old, making very few mistakes, never appearing to be under stress, is fantastic.

"I think we all thought that maybe the second half of this season, the same would happen as last year at McLaren with Oscar [Piastri] and Lando [Norris]. But no, he kept his cool.

"And he's very calculating as well. If he knows that he cannot win, he gets the best out of it, which is normally a podium.

"He's so very mature for a 20-year-old. It's nice to see that young people can be like him as well, as a person. He's a very good kid, which is nice to see from the outside."