Mercedes point to major Lewis Hamilton influence over 'brilliant' Kimi Antonelli

Mercedes has pointed to the impact veteran race engineer Pete Bonnington has had on Kimi Antonelli's "brilliant" start to his F1 career.

Antonelli is currently in fifth place in the drivers' championship after his first two grands prix following fourth- and sixth-place finishes in Australia and China, respectively, sandwiching seventh in the Shanghai sprint. 

Four of the F1 rookies are yet to get off the mark in 2025, with Ollie Bearman on four points to Antonelli's 22. The 18-year-old Italian is the highest-placed driver in the standings yet to earn a podium.

The Italian was promoted to fill the void left by Lewis Hamilton's departure to Ferrari, and was paired with the seven-time world champion's engineer Bonnington, who guided Hamilton to 83 of his 84 Mercedes wins and all six of his titles with the team. 

Prior to Hamilton, Bonnington also worked with the other septuple world champion in Michael Schumacher, and also with 2009 world champion Jenson Button when the team was in its Brawn GP guise.

Highlighting Bonnington's experience as a key pillar behind Antonelli, trackside engineering chief Andrew Shovlin said: "He's a brilliant fit in the team, and it's difficult to come in after a driver who's been as successful as Lewis has. 

"For Kimi, it's still really early days in his F1 career. Now happily, he's got an extremely experienced race engineer with Bono who's helping him work out how to approach the weekends, how you build your speed and how you work on the car setup.

"Everyone in the team's quite excited to be working with him, and he's just enjoying it.

"I think in Melbourne, he couldn't quite believe he was actually starting an F1 race. Having your first race being a wet one, well, that's particularly tricky, but he's settling into it. 

"There's a lot more to come from Kimi."