Italian sport is enjoying an extraordinary period of success—apart from football. The Azzurri have missed out on qualification for the FIFA World Cup once again, marking a humiliating third consecutive failure and highlighting the need for a complete overhaul of the country’s youth development system.
Elsewhere, however, Italy is thriving. In tennis, the nation continues to shine thanks not only to world No. 1 Jannik Sinner, who today will contest his second consecutive Wimbledon final, but also to Flavio Cobolli, now ranked inside the ATP top 10 after coming close to a breakthrough triumph at Roland Garros. Formula 1, too, has finally given Italian fans a homegrown star to rally behind. More than 70 years later, an Italian driver is once again capturing the imagination of the nation with exceptional talent. In just over a year, Bologna-born Kimi Antonelli has won over fans across the country. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, who has guided his career since the junior categories, has never doubted the remarkable potential of his young protégé.
Leading the World Championship and delivering consistently impressive performances have propelled the 19-year-old into an entirely new dimension, where intense media attention can easily become a burden. Toto Wolff understands that better than anyone and has worked hard to shield Antonelli from the potentially harmful effects of his sudden worldwide popularity.
For Italian Formula 1 fans, this is unfamiliar territory. The last Italian driver to genuinely fight for the world title was Michele Alboreto back in 1985, until the “Drake” decided Ferrari should switch from KKK turbochargers to Garrett units on the Ferrari 156-85.
Enzo Ferrari made that decision because he believed the German supplier was favoring the McLaren-Porsche partnership. It proved to be a disastrous choice, leading to repeated reliability problems that ultimately derailed the late Milanese driver’s championship challenge.
Fast forward to today, and the landscape is very different. Kimi Antonelli races for Mercedes, while Ferrari has once again become one of Formula 1’s leading contenders. According to a StageUp and Ipsos-Doxa survey published by La Gazzetta dello Sport, Antonelli’s popularity has exploded. The young Italian now enjoys the support of 33.1% of Italian fans—the exact same percentage as Ferrari.
It is a remarkable statistic in a country where the Prancing Horse has always represented far more than a racing team. For generations, Ferrari has been almost a national institution, and drivers from every corner of the world have traditionally been embraced by Italian fans simply because they wore the famous red overalls. The days when Riccardo Patrese was booed at Imola after his retirement at Acque Minerali, effectively handing victory to Patrick Tambay just one year after Gilles Villeneuve’s tragic death, now feel like a distant memory.
Formula 1 fandom has undoubtedly evolved, becoming more similar to MotoGP, where supporters often follow riders more passionately than manufacturers. Even so, it is difficult to believe that the survey fully reflects the true balance of support in Italy.
Just imagine, for a moment, if Kimi Antonelli were to win the Formula 1 World Championship by only a handful of points ahead of Lewis Hamilton or Charles Leclerc. The consequences for Ferrari would be enormous. The Maranello team’s championship drought, stretching all the way back to 2007, would continue—ironically, just one year after the birth of the Bologna-born prodigy.
The feeling is that Italian Formula 1 support is indeed going through a generational shift, driven by Ferrari’s long period without a world title and, at the same time, by the rapid rise of a driver who appears destined to become one of the sport’s defining talents. Yet if Ferrari were genuinely fighting for both championships until the final race, those opinion polls might paint a very different picture.
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