Netflix launched a new documentary about F1 last month, with the Chinese title "A Seat at the Table".
Antonelli, one of the drivers of the Mercedes AMG team, is the protagonist of this documentary. (Don't worry, the following content does not involve spoilers. If you happen to see this article before watching this documentary, I think it just serves as a footnote, nothing more) Like all the troubles that high school students in their teens and 18s will experience, Antonelli could not escape the torture of math problems. But he is still much luckier than his peers. He was selected to enter F1 before he was 20 years old, becoming one of the twentieth of this top sport.
Poster of "One Seat"
The man who made the decision was Toto Wolff, the team leader of Mercedes AMG. Born in Vienna, Toto is 53 years old now. When he was 18 years old, he met F3 and realized that racing might be what he wanted. He tried to race, but unfortunately he was injured and almost lost a finger. As the saying goes, good things are worth a while, but too late is also a problem. Fortunately, before Damon Hill lifted the trophy, Toto killed his dream of racing with his own hands. Reason told him that it was right to give up.
This is indeed the case. Later, Toto took another path, team manager. Toto took over the Mercedes team at the end of the 2013 season. Before that, he played for another F1 team and owned corresponding shares. Toto unswervingly practices his business creed. He believes that everyone in the team should be honest and be able to tell the brutal truth, even if it hurts people. This also won Toto the opportunity to work in a big team. He once bluntly told Mercedes management, "You are only willing to take out the same budget as the small team, and you still ask me to lead this team to win the championship. It's just a dream."
F1 fans are already familiar with what happened next. In the past decade, Mercedes has become a legendary star team. Hamilton has continuously broken the record left by Schumacher, and is as famous as the king of the generation with the honor of seven championship drivers. Until one day in 2024, Toto was told that Hamilton would leave Mercedes and move to Ferrari. Just like the surprise when they first met, Hamilton's departure also caught Toto off guard. Not only Toto, but also the fans were stunned. Hamilton's pursuit of the eighth championship no longer had the name of Toto Wolff. They had fought side by side for eleven years and were recognized as the golden partners in the paddock.
So, the question everyone is asking is, who can fill Hamilton's shoes? That's where A Seat begins.
In the Mario Kart world, choosing between Costuro or Toad is just a matter of preference. However, in real-life racing, choosing a driver has nothing to do with preference. Toto's "mortal enemy" in F1, Red Bull Racing team leader Horner, believes that the principle of choosing a driver is investment and return. "If he can deliver on the promises we believe he can deliver, the return will be considerable."
Horner's most proud investment is Verstappen (if you don't know who Verstappen is, welcome to read "Genius Verstappen" and "Revisiting Verstappen" ). Now his dominance on the track has reached the point where even if you shout that Verstappen is the best in the game, no one should stand up to oppose it. However, in 2016, not many people were optimistic about Verstappen, and Horner was one of them. As the team leader, he went against the crowd to replace the more experienced Kvyat and promoted Verstappen, who was only 18 years old and had only experienced one F1 season, to Red Bull. Ten years have passed, and Horner is already looking forward to Verstappen's fifth world championship.
Toto Wolff at the 2025 F1 Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, Spain, on June 1, 2025, local time.
For Toto, Antonelli is another big gamble in his career. When it comes to investment, no team leader should be more business-minded than Toto. Long before entering F1, Toto quickly became rich by investing in technology companies. He witnessed the explosive growth of the Internet industry and pocketed the profits before everything turned into a bubble. His investment in Mercedes over the past decade has brought him unimaginable returns. Now he owns 1/3 of the team's shares and was certified as a billionaire by Forbes for the first time last year with a net worth of US$1 billion.
Toto once said in a past interview, "I have never felt pressure in my life. Because every decision I make is well thought out, which means I can cope with the worst outcome. If the worst outcome really affects the quality of my life, I will never make this decision."
But it is impossible for high school student Antonelli not to feel a little pressure. His debut in F1 was not a good one. In the first practice session in Monza, Italy, Antonelli lost control and crashed into the wall. Even if he hadn't crashed into the wall, Antonelli's racing career as an Italian driver would not have been much easier. Since 1953, Italy has not produced an F1 world champion. The Italian media simply wrote their voice in the headline without disguising, "Because of Antonelli, Italians have the freedom to dream again."
Antonelli
At the end of "One Seat" (if I remember correctly), looking back on the first show crash, Antonelli honestly told the camera about his feelings. He said, "Everyone told me not to take it to heart, try to forget it, look forward, and focus on the next step, but it took me a long time to get over it. That incident lingered in my mind." It turns out that high school students driving Mercedes-Benz cars have more troubles than just not being able to solve math problems.
I am still updating the F1 series. If you are interested in F1, you are welcome to check out the previous F1-related articles in the "Qigu Pai" column:
Curious | The best book about F1 ever
Curious | Zhou Guanyu, on April 21st
Curious｜When we learn about Australia from Ricciardo and Holden
Curious｜Toyota, starting a new adventure in autumn
Curious | F1's lower-tier team Williams believes success is just around the corner
