How Antonelli reminded Brundle of Schumacher with crash-to-podium

Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s recovery from a practice crash to the Formula 1 podium at the Australian Grand Prix has drawn comparisons to Michael Schumacher.

Antonelli bounced back from a huge accident in final practice to put his Mercedes on the front row in qualifying, before converting his P2 start into second place in Melbourne.

The 19-year-old Italian finished just 2.9 seconds behind Mercedes team-mate George Russell in the F1 2026 season-opener to complete an impressive turnaround after ending FP3 in the barriers.

Antonelli’s performance drew high-praise from Martin Brundle, who said the display reminded him of watching legendary seven-time world champion Schumacher.

“Mercedes were very strong in winter testing and carried the 'favourite' tag into Melbourne, and that turned out to be correct. They had great single-lap and race pace," Brundle wrote in his regular post-race Sky Sports F1 column.

"Kimi Antonelli dismantled his car against the walls in practice and the team did extremely well to fix it just in time for him to do a lap in Q1, given extra breathing space by Max's Red Bull locking up his rear wheels and hand-braking him into the barriers, causing a red flag.

"Kimi went from crashing to extremely fast on his next flying lap. That reminded me of watching Michael Schumacher crashing the spare Benetton in Suzuka 1991, which was primarily allocated to team-mate Nelson Piquet for the weekend.”

And Brundle has backed Antonelli to challenge Russell for the world championship.

“Antonelli duly finished second despite a tardy start, and I have zero doubt that he will more than keep George on his toes all season long,” he added.

“It'll be errors which decide it between them if Mercedes does indeed have the championship-winning car.”

Heading into the weekend, Antonelli expressed confidence that he had learned from the mistakes he made during a rollercoaster rookie F1 season in 2025.

“Definitely the European season was a difficult moment for me, but I learned a lot, also about myself,” he explained to media including Crash.net in Melbourne.

“It’s been incredibly helpful, that period, even though it was not pleasant. But I learnt a lot and now I know what I need to avoid in order not to fall into the same trap.”

2009 world champion Jenson Button was also impressed by Antonelli, telling Sky Sports F1: “There’s a few on the grid like him. I would say he’s a little bit like Max Verstappen in that regard. You know, putting everything on the line every session.

“But we’ve also got to give him credit, because the car, I don’t know if they did a proper sit-down with the car when they put everything on. Normally, everything’s very close.

“But you want to make sure it’s perfect, and that can make small differences here and there, marginal gains. So, I think it was a very good lap from Kimi.”