Kimi Antonelli compared to Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel after stunning 2026 F1 start

Former F1 TV presenter Will Buxton has likened current Formula 1 championship leader Kimi Antonelli to a young Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel.

In his second year in F1, Antonelli has surprised the paddock with an incredible start to the year. After just five rounds, the 19-year-old leads the drivers' championship by 43 points over his Mercedes team-mate George Russell.

His latest win in Canada saw him become the first driver to win his first four races consecutively, after also winning the Chinese, Japanese and Miami Grands Prix. 

Up until the Canadian Grand Prix, it had been fairly undramatic within the Mercedes camp. But the race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve saw the gloves come off as Antonelli and Russell battled it out on track.

While Antonelli had accused his team-mate of pushing him off the track in the sprint race, all was resolved behind closed doors, and they continued with a close battle in the grand prix before Russell suffered a battery failure.

Speaking on the Up To Speed podcast, Buxton drew parallels between Antonelli's current approach and the early careers of Hamilton and Vettel. 

"He reminds me a lot of a young Lewis back in '08 or a young Seb when he first came into the sport," Buxton explained. "I picked Lewis because Lewis, in his first season, was fighting for a world championship.

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren

Photo by: James Moy Photography via Getty Images

"There was still the rawness of the GP2 champion in Lewis in that first year, and Fernando [Alonso] wasn't ready for that because Fernando thought, 'Oh, here's this young kid and I'll easily be able to dominate him.'

"But Lewis was taking very low-percentage moments and making them work just on that inherent skill, going over the limit, but somehow catching it, somehow bringing it back, and those moments were enthralling. 

"Webber used to get really upset. I remember when Webber got taken out by Vettel in Fuji and said, 'It's just young kids who f*** it all up,' or something like that and it was like, 'They've got all this talent and then they f*** it all up.'

"And you saw with Lewis, and you saw with Seb, these two guys who were going to be champions. It was just that rawness to their racecraft that was an absolute joy to watch."

He continued: "The radio messages I found really interesting over the weekend and obviously, there's been a lot written in the past 24 hours, and you always get the headlines. 

"I think you've got to read far deeper into it because the headlines are like, 'Oh, Toto says he's going to stop the two of them racing and he's going to call a halt to it,' but actually when you dive down into it, I think it's really interesting that Toto's actually enjoying watching them race.

"There's a limit, and we heard that on the radio. I don't enjoy the drivers being told basically to can their emotions and to stop bringing their emotions out on the radio.

"And I know there's sponsor considerations and all of this and all of that, but on one hand, we want drivers to be emotional, and we're asking them to be emotional and wear their hearts on their sleeves. And then on the other, you're like, 'No, actually, shut up and stop that and we'll talk about it behind closed doors.' We want emotion."