MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Kimi Antonelli, the 18-year-old rookie driver for Mercedes, has made Formula One history at the 2025 Miami Grand Prix.
Antonelli, whose birthday is Aug. 25, 2006, won pole position for the Miami Grand Prix Sprint race, becoming the youngest pole sitter in any race format in Formula One history.
Antonelli finished with a lap time of 1:26.482 during sprint qualifying, marking the fastest lap ever in four years of the Miami Grand Prix race.
“It was a very tense qualifying. I felt really good since this morning and I felt confident going into qualifying. That was the mindset. I put basically everything together. … I’m really happy to get the first pole,” Antonelli said in a post-qualifying interview.
“Tomorrow’s gonna be nice to start (in) the front row. It’s gonna be a piece of a different ceiling. But I really gonna wait for tomorrow and to see how we can do in the Sprint and then in the qualifying, as well.”
Antonelli and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, the current points leader in the F1 Drivers’ standings with 99 points, will start on the front row.
McLaren’s Lando Norris, the 2024 Miami GP winner, will start the Sprint race in third, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who won the 2022 and 2023 Miami GPs.
Mercedes’ George Russell will start fifth, while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton will start from P6 and P7, respectively.
Williams driver Alex Albon will start in P8, Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar is in P9, and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso rounds out the top 10.
The Miami Grand Prix Sprint Race begins on May 3 at noon ET on ESPN, and qualifying for the Grand Prix will follow at 4 p.m. on ESPN.
The Miami Grand Prix is at 4 p.m. ET on May 4 (ABC and ESPN).
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kimi Antonelli pole: 18-year-old makes history at Miami GP event
