Antonelli says he is “looking forward to reading” Hamilton’s message

© Finn Pomeroy for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.

Kimi Antonelli says Lewis Hamilton wrote him “a nice message” in the Mercedes driver’s room, and adds he “can’t believe” he’s “going to be sharing the grid with him”.

Before leaving Mercedes at the end of 2024, Lewis Hamilton left a message to his successor Andrea Kimi Antonelli in the driver’s room of the team’s truck.

Kimi says he is looking forward to reading the message and reveals what Lewis told him before his departure.

“He’s been really nice to me he’s been just telling me to enjoy and of course to do my best and not worry about the rest,” the Italian said.

“Also, apparently he wrote a nice message in the truck, the Mercedes truck, in the driver room, so I’m really looking forward to reading it and I think it was extremely kind.

“I still to be honest can’t believe I’m going to be sharing the grid with him next year, he’s such a great figure in the sport, he’s achieved so much…

“So, I’m really happy for the opportunity I’m getting,” Kimi concluded.

The message was first revealed to the public back in December, by Mercedes team coordinator Stephen Lord.


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“It’s quite an interesting insight into the Lewis that perhaps people don’t see,” Lord said on the Beyond the Grid podcast, while describing Lewis’ final moments at the track in Abu Dhabi.

“Lewis had finished engineering. I think the engineers had left, so Lewis was upstairs in the room on his own.

“I popped up, grabbed a couple of bits, came back down the stairs and Lewis came down the stairs, ready to leave and head home.

“He got to the bottom of the stairs, and he stopped, and then he turned around and he went back upstairs, I thought ‘oh, he’s forgotten something’. Didn’t think much of it.

“He came back down about 10 minutes later, and he grabbed a guy that works for the team, Carlos, who’s our head of race team logistics. And you could see that Lewis was really quite emotional.

“And, he grabbed Carlos, and Carlos’ job, he is responsible for all of the trucks, the race base in Europe. He oversees the build and the transportation of these so Lewis knows that it’s Carlos’ thing.

“I was stood there, and he said: ‘It’s only just occurred to me, I’m never going to see that room ever again.’

“And he said, ‘I’m really emotional’. He said: ‘I can’t leave. I feel kind of sad to walk away from that room because I’ve been in that room for so many years and I’m never going to see it again.’



And he was really quite touched that he was leaving it behind. Anyway, so off he went. I went back up to the room to pack his last few bits of driver kit and grab the helmets and everything.

“I walked into the room and on the wall there’s quite a long, handwritten note on the wall, and it was a note to Kimi, and it was basically welcoming him to his new room, and it was wishing him the best of luck, saying some really nice things about the team and how if you care for them, they’ll care for you, because they’re a great team. And I thought: ‘Wow, what a nice thing to do.’

“So I went and grabbed Carl and showed him, and he said, ‘Wow, that’s incredible’. And actually, now we’ve had glass cut, and it’s now covered in the room, so it will be there forevermore.

“So, Carl went off, I thought: ‘I’ll just go into the bathroom and make sure that everything’s been packed away and we’ve got all we need.’

“So I walked into the bathroom, and next to the toilet, above the toilet roll holder, was ‘Lewis was ‘ere’ with a big smiley face.

“And I thought: ‘Okay, I like that,’” Lord concluded.

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