Valentino Rossi Says He’s ‘With Kimi Now’ as Motorcycling Legend Hails Antonelli’s Rise as ‘Very Special’ for Italy

• Nine-time motorcycling world champion Valentino Rossi says he is now following Kimi Antonelli’s title bid, calling the 19-year-old’s form “very special” for Italy.
• Antonelli would be the country’s first Formula 1 world champion in the era after Alberto Ascari, who won the title back in 1953.
• Asked who is more famous in Italy right now, Antonelli deflected the question away from tennis world No. 1 Jannik Sinner and toward Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc instead.

Valentino Rossi has thrown his support behind Kimi Antonelli’s title bid, with the nine-time motorcycling world champion describing the impact of the 19-year-old Mercedes driver’s title challenge as “very special” for Italy.

Antonelli goes into Formula 1’s summer break having completed 11 of a 23-race calendar, with 12 rounds still to come now that Malaysia’s Sepang circuit has been confirmed as the venue for a Bahrain Grand Prix replacement later in the year.

Watch every race of the 2026 season live on Apple TV

‘I am with Kimi now’

Rossi, speaking to Sky Sports F1, explained that his rooting interest sits with the driver rather than the team, even as an Italian in a country where support for Ferrari runs deep. “You can imagine in Italy, with Ferrari, it is like a religion you know,” Rossi said. “For sure all the Italians are happy when Ferrari win. But I am more a driver fan.”

He named two other favorites before turning to Antonelli. “I follow Lando [Norris], I follow Lewis [Hamilton], I follow the driver. You know, if you drive for McLaren or for Ferrari, for me it is not a big difference. So, I am with Kimi now. He is a great talent, he has a lot of speed and, in Italy, we never had a Formula 1 driver who can win the championship in the last 70 years, so this is very special.”

A 70-year wait

Rossi’s reference to seven decades points to Alberto Ascari, the last Italian to win the Formula 1 world championship, a feat he achieved in 1953. The last Italian driver to win a Grand Prix before Antonelli’s run this year was Giancarlo Fisichella, back in 2006, and Ferrari’s own most recent constructors’ title dates back to 2008. Antonelli’s five consecutive victories earlier this season, a run that began with his maiden win in China and carried him to the top of the drivers’ standings, mark the country’s closest brush with Formula 1 success in a generation. Rossi, one of the most decorated Italian sportsmen of any code with nine world titles on two wheels, is far from the only Italian sports star paying attention to what the teenager is doing.

A reception waiting at Monza

With Antonelli’s lead intact heading into the break, attention is turning to how Italian fans will greet him when the championship reaches Monza, a race that carries extra significance for any driver racing under the home flag at what is known as the Temple of Speed. Ferrari has yet to challenge consistently at the front this year even with a Silverstone win from Charles Leclerc and a Barcelona victory from Lewis Hamilton, leaving Antonelli, driving for Mercedes rather than the sport’s Italian team, as the country’s clearest route to a first champion in the decades after Ascari. The scale of the reception awaiting him at Monza remains to be seen, but with an Italian leading the championship for the first time in decades, the appetite for a home celebration is already building.

Leclerc, not Sinner

Antonelli’s growing profile has followed him into the paddock and onto the timing screens. Ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, he was asked in a press conference whether he or tennis world No. 1 and Wimbledon champion Jannik Sinner was the more recognizable figure in Italy at the moment. Rather than answer directly, Antonelli redirected the question toward a Formula 1 rival. “More famous in Italy is Charles [Leclerc], right now,” he joked. “He’s probably the most famous man in Italy.”

The response captured a driver keeping the growing attention at arm’s length even as his results continue to put him at the center of the conversation, both in Formula 1 and across Italian sport more broadly. Antonelli carries a 50-point lead over second-placed Hamilton and a 59-point cushion over his own Mercedes teammate, George Russell, into the three-week break, with the season resuming at the Dutch Grand Prix on August 21-23.

The scale of history behind the numbers

Rossi’s own career offers some context for why he sees something out of the ordinary in what Antonelli is doing. Across nine world championships spanning three different classes of motorcycle racing, Rossi became the face of a golden era for Italy on two wheels, a level of sustained success that Formula 1 has not offered an Italian driver again after the 1950s. That gap helps explain why a rider from a different sport altogether is watching Antonelli’s championship bid so closely, and why he was willing to set aside a lifetime of Ferrari affiliation to say so publicly. For a 19-year-old already carrying the demands of a title fight through his second full season in Formula 1, having one of the country’s most recognized sporting figures in his corner adds another layer to a campaign that continues to defy expectations.

Not a perfect run

Rossi is responding to a season that has not been flawless. Antonelli picked up a grid penalty in Hungary for failing to slow sufficiently under yellow flags in qualifying, one of several smaller errors that have crept into his campaign alongside the mechanical DNF in Barcelona and the reliability failure at Silverstone. He still recovered to finish third in Budapest, extending his championship lead in the process, a pattern that has repeated itself across the year: setbacks that would derail a title bid for most drivers have instead been absorbed and answered with a result that keeps the gap growing rather than closing.

That combination, genuine pace paired with the ability to bounce back from mistakes and misfortune alike, is part of what has caught the attention of a nine-time champion from outside the sport altogether. Rossi built his own reputation on exactly that kind of resilience across two decades of motorcycle racing, and it is not hard to see why he recognizes it in a 19-year-old doing something no Italian driver has managed in Formula 1 for more than 70 years.

What comes next

Formula 1 returns from the break with a Sprint weekend at Zandvoort on August 21-23, the first of 12 remaining rounds in which Antonelli will try to turn his midseason lead into a first Formula 1 title for Italy in the era after Ascari. The Dutch Grand Prix will also mark the track debut of Honda’s revised power unit for Aston Martin, one of several developments teams are working through over the break, but for Mercedes and Antonelli the priority remains simple: protect the advantage built across the first half of the year and continue delivering the kind of drives that have turned a home fan of Ferrari’s biggest two-wheeled rival into one of his most vocal supporters.

Whether that support translates into anything resembling the reception Rossi himself used to receive from Italian crowds will only become clear once the championship reaches Monza in September. Until then, Antonelli’s task is the same one that has defined his rookie season so far: keep winning, keep leading, and let performances on track continue to do the talking that has already convinced one of the country’s greatest sportsmen to change allegiance.

Want more F1Chronicle.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for the best F1 news and analysis on the internet.

More F1 Reading

• Why Lando Norris Believes He Is Driving Better Than He Did in His 2025 Title-Winning Season
• Are Formula 1 Drivers Athletes?
• How Do F1 Teams Deliver Upgrades?
• Has An F1 Driver Ever Won Le Mans?

Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

More articles by Jack Renn →