Italian F1 drought: 73-year gap ends with Antonelli

Kimi Antonelli is positioned to end a 73-year drought for Italian Formula 1 champions. The 20-year-old driver is expected to be crowned the world champion on Sunday in Mexico City. This title would make him the youngest driver in the sport's history to hold the championship.

The last Italian to win the Formula 1 Drivers' World Championship was Alberto Ascari in 1953. Before that, Nino Farina won the inaugural title in 1950 for Alfa Romeo. Ascari secured two additional titles for Ferrari in 1952 and 1953. The 1950s marked a peak for the Italian auto industry in motorsports.

Financial difficulties forced Alfa Romeo, Lancia, and Maserati out of the sport by 1960. This left Ferrari as the sole Italian constructor capable of competing for the title. Small British teams, often operating from garages and referred to by founder Enzo Ferrari as "garagistas," began to dominate with lightweight designs that prioritized engineering over driver skill.

Safety concerns also played a role in the decline of Italian drivers. The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano criticized the sport after the 1958 death of Ferrari driver Luigi Musso. The publication compared the sport to the Roman god Saturn, arguing that the industry consumed its own children for economic gain. This sentiment grew after Lorenzo Bandini suffered fatal burns in a 1967 crash.

Mario Andretti, an American driver with Italian heritage, stated that Enzo Ferrari swore to stop hiring Italian drivers after Bandini's death. From 1967 to 2026, only one Italian, Michele Alboreto, completed a full season with Ferrari in the mid-1980s. Alboreto finished second in the 1985 championship standings. Giancarlo Fisichella was the most recent Italian to drive for the team in Formula 1, serving as a substitute in 2009.

The team often turned to drivers with Italian ancestry who were not Italian citizens. Mario Andretti won the championship in 1978 for Lotus. Ayrton Senna and Emerson Fittipaldi, both of Brazilian origin with Italian heritage, won multiple titles. In recent years, drivers like Daniel Ricciardo and Oscar Piastri have carried the Italian flag despite being born in Australia.

Antonelli is set to join this lineage of Italian-connected champions. He is reportedly being driven by Mercedes, the team that signed him after Ferrari rejected him as a child. His victory in Mexico City would mark the first time an Italian has won the Formula 1 title since 1953.