The Fastest Thing Toto Built Wasn’t the Car.

What Formula 1, Kimi Antonelli and Toto Wolff can teach us about leadership, human potential and creating the conditions for extraordinary performance.

For years, I’ve followed Formula 1 closely, season after season, race by race. So, when Kimi Antonelli crossed the line in Mexico City in 2026 and became the youngest world champion in Formula 1 history, I wasn’t just watching a 20-year-old win a trophy.

What made this season extraordinary was witnessing the culmination of a journey that, at several points, made people question whether putting so much trust in such a young driver was a risk that would pay off at all.

And then came the photograph.

Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, in my opinion two of the greatest drivers in the sport, with eleven world championships between them, lifting Kimi onto their shoulders. Celebrating a young man who had just achieved what every driver on that grid dreams of.

There is something quite extraordinary about that image. Not just the victory, but the respect, love and admiration behind it. The recognition of what it took to get there.

Because this wasn’t a success story that appeared overnight. It was built, race by race, mistake by mistake, decision by decision.

And it started with a decision that many people thought was a mistake.

1. The biggest gamble wasn’t on the car. It was on a 17-year-old.

In 2024, Lewis Hamilton announced he was leaving Mercedes for Ferrari. Replacing a seven-time world champion is about as high-stakes as a hiring decision gets. The safe choice was obvious. Another experienced F1 driver who was available: experienced, proven and already a race winner.

Instead, Toto Wolff chose a 17-year-old from Mercedes’ own junior programme. A teenager with barely two and a half years of single-seater racing behind him.

The criticism was immediate. Was it too much, too soon? Was Toto taking an unnecessary risk? Was his decision driven by confidence in the young driver or something else?

Even former drivers questioned it. And then, during Kimi’s first practice session in a Mercedes at Monza, in front of his home crowd, he crashed less than ten minutes in.

Imagine being 18, making your first appearance in a Mercedes, knowing the entire world is watching, and having that happen. But I keep coming back to Toto’s response. Before the session, he’d simply told Kimi to enjoy it. After the crash, his message over the radio was:

“Kimi, all good, all good Kimi.”

And publicly, he made it clear that the crash would not change his decision. That moment tells me more about leadership than many polished speeches ever could.

Toto had made the decision to back Kimi. He also understood that backing someone means being prepared to stand by that decision when things get uncomfortable.

It’s easy to champion potential when everything is going well. It’s considerably harder when the first visible result is a car in the barriers.

2. The real test of leadership comes after the crash.

Kimi’s rookie season in 2025 started with promise, but it wasn’t the smooth progression everyone might have hoped for.

Anyone who followed the season will remember the difficult moments.

At Imola, his first home race as a Mercedes driver, the team allowed him to take on so many commitments with fans and media that, in Toto’s own words, he was already exhausted before the race. Toto acknowledged it was a team mistake.

At Spa, Kimi was knocked out in the first part of qualifying and started 18th. He was in tears in parc fermé before facing the media.

At Zandvoort, he made a mistake that sent Charles Leclerc into the barriers.

There were critics questioning whether he belonged in Formula 1. There was social media abuse. There were weekends when his performance simply wasn’t where it needed to be. And Toto’s response wasn’t always to wrap him in reassurance.

After Monza, he publicly described Kimi’s performance as underwhelming. He and Kimi’s race engineer, Peter Bonnington, then sat down with him, talked through what was going wrong and helped him reset.

One of my favourite details from Kimi himself is how he described Toto’s different ways of addressing him:

When he’s driving well, he’s Kimi.

When he’s not, he’s Andrea.

And when things are really bad, he’s Antonelli.

It’s funny, but I think it captures something important about their relationship. There was warmth, but there was also accountability. There was belief, but there was no pretending that every performance was brilliant.

The standard didn’t disappear just because the person was still learning. And the relationship didn’t disappear just because the standard wasn’t met.

That distinction matters enormously.

3. Talent is personal. Performance is a team sport.

We often talk about talent as though it’s something people either have or don’t have. We celebrate natural ability, individual brilliance, resilience and determination. And, of course, all of those things matter.

But watching Kimi’s journey and many other extraordinary high performers, I kept thinking about the environment and tools surrounding the driver.

The car. The engineering team. The race engineer. The coaching. The decisions made behind closed doors. The people absorbing pressure. The leadership willing to take responsibility. The thousands of small adjustments that make performance possible.

Formula 1 is perhaps one of the most fascinating examples of this because the individual performance is so visible, but the system behind it is enormous. But a driver cannot win a championship through talent alone.

Neither can an organisation build extraordinary performance through talented individuals alone. What I saw Toto do was bring together several conditions that allowed Kimi to develop.

• He backed potential before it was proven. He was willing to take the risk himself rather than expecting a young driver to carry the entire burden of that decision.
• He created room to learn. Mistakes were not automatically treated as evidence that the original decision was wrong.
• He protected without lowering expectations. He took responsibility when the team got things wrong and stood up for Kimi when the criticism became personal.
• He surrounded him with the right people. Particularly Bono, whose relationship with Kimi became an important part of his development.
• He stayed honest. Difficult performances were addressed directly. There was no confusing kindness with avoiding uncomfortable conversations.
• He invested in the whole system. Ultimately, Mercedes also had to deliver a car capable of competing at the very highest level.

This is what I find so interesting from a performance psychology and organisational effectiveness perspective.

People don’t perform in isolation. They perform within environments.

The conditions around them influence how they respond to pressure, how quickly they learn, how confidently they experiment, how they recover from setbacks and, ultimately, how much of their potential they can actually realise.

There is a particularly important balance here: creating enough psychological safety for people to take risks, while maintaining the clarity and standards required to deliver exceptional results.

Too much pressure without support creates fear. Support without challenge can create complacency. The magic happens when both exist.

4. And then, the magic happened.

By 2026, the story started to look very different. When Kimi won his first Grand Prix in China, Toto described it as one of the best moments he’d experienced in Formula 1.

And this is a man who has experienced an extraordinary amount of success in the sport. But the moment that really got me was Monza in September.

The same circuit where Kimi had crashed less than ten minutes into his first Mercedes practice session two years earlier. This time, he started 19th following a power-unit penalty. And won. The first Italian to win the Italian Grand Prix since 1966.

Think about that for a moment.

The same young driver. The same circuit. A completely different story.

By the time he reached Mexico, Kimi had nine wins and a championship lead that had put the title almost beyond doubt. He finished third, secured the world championship with four races remaining, and cried on the final lap.

Bono was in his ear. The same race engineer who had helped him through the difficult moments was now telling him he was world champion.

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I love that detail.

Because performance isn’t just about the moment we cross the finish line. It’s also about remembering everyone and everything that helped us get there.

5. The most beautiful part wasn’t the trophy.

Let’s go back to that photograph. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen lifting Kimi onto their shoulders. There is something particularly powerful about being celebrated by the very people who understand how difficult it is to achieve what you’ve just achieved.

Hamilton had publicly supported Kimi taking his Mercedes seat back in 2024. Two years later, he was celebrating his championship alongside him. Verstappen, another formidable competitor, was there too.

And I think this is where the story becomes even more interesting.

Kimi hadn’t simply been handed a seat, a car or a championship. Everyone had watched the journey. The crashes. The tears. The difficult weekends. The criticism. The learning. The recovery. The extraordinary performances that followed.

His success had happened in full view of the people who understood the sport better than almost anyone. And they respected it.

There is a particular kind of success that doesn’t diminish anyone else. It inspires respect, even from the people competing against you.

That’s what I find so beautiful about this moment.

It wasn’t just a young driver celebrating his own achievement. It was an entire sporting community recognising what had been accomplished.

The best kind of success is not only achieved. It is recognised, respected and celebrated.

6. Three things every leader can start doing tomorrow.

I’m not suggesting every organisation should start recruiting 17-year-olds and putting them behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car.

But I do think Kimi’s journey raises some important questions about how we lead, particularly as a new generation arrives at work with different capabilities, expectations and potential.

If I could take three things from Toto’s leadership and translate them into everyday organisational life, they would be these.

1. Believe in potential before the results prove you right.

Toto didn’t wait for Kimi to become a world-class driver before giving him the opportunity. He recognised potential and was willing to back it.

How many people in our organisations are waiting for someone to believe in them before they get the opportunity to demonstrate what they’re capable of?

Belief is not blind optimism. It is recognising potential, giving people meaningful opportunities and making it clear that you see something in them that they might not yet see in themselves.

Sometimes, the difference between someone giving up and finding another gear is knowing that somebody believes they can get there.

Start doing: Tell people what potential you see in them. Give them opportunities that stretch them. Don’t make them wait until they are already exceptional to be treated as someone capable of exceptional things.

2. Pay attention to the environment you’re wrapping around people.

There is a finding from the Workforce Institute at UKG that I think every leader should know.

In a 2023 global study involving 3,400 people across ten countries, 69% of employees said their manager had an impact on their mental health comparable to that of their spouse or partner.The reported impact was greater than that attributed to doctors (51%) or therapists (41%).

Let that sink in.

The person setting your priorities, responding to your mistakes, deciding how much pressure you carry and influencing how safe you feel speaking up can have an enormous impact on your wellbeing.

We spend so much time talking about employee wellbeing initiatives, resilience training and mental health resources. But perhaps we should spend just as much time looking at the everyday environment leaders create.

How do people feel after a conversation with you? Can they disagree without worrying about the consequences? Is the workload sustainable? Do they have clarity, autonomy and the support to do their jobs? Do they feel trusted, or constantly monitored?

The environment isn’t just the office, the culture statement or the benefits package. It’s the experience people have every day. It’s the relationships, expectations, decisions, behaviours, resources and responses that surround them.

Start doing: Look at the environment you’re wrapping around your people. Examine the workload, expectations, relationships, decision-making, autonomy and support. Don’t just ask people to become more resilient to a difficult environment. Ask yourself what you can change about that environment.

3. Make your response to mistakes part of your leadership legacy.

Everyone will have their version of Kimi’s Monza crash.

A missed deadline. A difficult conversation. A failed project. A decision that didn’t work. Sometimes a very public mistake.

Your response in those moments matters more than you might realise.

Do you immediately look for someone to blame? Do you withdraw your confidence? Do you make the person feel that one mistake has changed how you see them?

Or do you create enough space to understand what happened, take responsibility where appropriate, have the difficult conversation and help them find their way forward?

Toto didn’t pretend Kimi’s difficult performances were good enough. But he didn’t allow those performances to define the driver’s entire potential either.

That’s a very important distinction.

Start doing: Before reacting to a mistake, pause and ask three questions:

• What happened?
• What can we learn?
• What does this person need from me to move forward?

Keep the standards high, but don’t make people pay for being human.

7. The next generation doesn’t just need opportunities. It needs the right environment.

We are entering a period where the next generation is arriving with different expectations, different capabilities and, increasingly, access to tools that can fundamentally change how work gets done.

AI is accelerating this shift. Experience still matters enormously, but the relationship between experience, expertise and potential is changing.

The question is whether our organisations are designed to recognise and develop that potential.

Do we give people opportunities before they have every qualification on paper?

Do we create environments where mistakes become learning rather than permanent labels?

Do our leaders take responsibility for the conditions in which people perform, or do we place the entire burden on individuals?

Do we surround talented people with the right expertise, systems, technology and support?

And perhaps most importantly, can we maintain high standards without making people afraid to fall short while they’re learning?

Building a high-performing environment isn’t about making everyone comfortable all the time. It’s about creating the conditions where people can do difficult things, challenge themselves, recover, improve and eventually achieve things they might not have thought possible.

It requires looking at the whole system, not just the individual. The leadership. The operating environment. The relationships. The decision-making. The resources. The culture. The standards.

All of it.

And it requires leaders who understand that when someone succeeds, the achievement may be theirs, but the conditions that enabled it were built by many.

There will always be a Spa. A difficult weekend. A mistake that everyone sees. A moment when someone questions whether they belong. What happens next is where leadership becomes visible.

Toto didn’t make Kimi a world champion. Kimi did that himself, with extraordinary talent, determination and hard work.

But Toto helped build an environment where that talent had room to grow, where mistakes didn’t end the story, where challenge came with support, and where the people around him were committed to making the whole thing work.

And when the glorious moment finally arrived, the world didn’t just celebrate the driver. It celebrated the journey.

Perhaps that’s one of the greatest things we can build as leaders: not just teams that deliver results, but environments that allow people to achieve something extraordinary, and create a culture where those achievements are genuinely celebrated and respected by everyone.

Because the real measure of leadership isn’t just how fast someone can go. It’s what becomes possible when we build the right environment around them.