Kimi Antonelli takes centre stage at Goodwood’s most glittering weekend

The defining image from this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed belongs to Kimi Antonelli. Mercedes’ twenty year old Italian driver, fresh from capturing the Formula One drivers’ championship, steered the two seater Mercedes AMG PureSpeed up the legendary hillclimb with the sort of unhurried velocity that separates the genuinely quick from the merely committed. Smoke billowed beneath ancient oak as he attacked the run in a machine purpose built for the Mythos series: open cockpit, roofless, powered by a 4.0-litre twin turbocharged V8 delivering 800 Newton metres of torque through seven ratios.

Instructed to take it easy, Antonelli ignored the counsel. They told me to go slow, but of course I didn’t listen, he confessed on the Pirelli fan zone stage, grinning with the confidence of a man who has proven himself quicker than everyone else. The weekend compressed the whole of his breakout summer into a blur of appearances: launching the new competition machines with Mercedes, entertaining thousands at the paddock, fielding embraces from rival teams who had come to respect his velocity. He departed reluctant, promising a return.

Goodwood’s oldest hillclimb welcomed its newest champion into a tradition that stretches back to 1993, when the Duke of Richmond first engineered motor racing’s return to the Sussex estate. Antonelli arrived on the shoulders of a week that began at Silverstone, took him to Wimbledon and ended here, where the Festival brought together the machinery and men who define their sport. He will keep his word. Next summer, they will be watching for him again.

Imagery courtesy of Goodwood Festival of Speed (@fosgoodwood).