Bonnington hails Antonelli as a "diamond in the rough" after stunning Monaco pole

Bono's verdict on a lap that left even him stunned

Peter Bonnington has worked with some of the finest talents Formula 1 has ever seen. Yet even the Mercedes race engineer, affectionately known to the paddock as "Bono", admitted that Kimi Antonelli's Monaco Grand Prix pole position caught him off guard.

"I'm sure he'll come back and say there was another tenth or two in there — he always does! — but [the lap] was pretty good," Bonnington said. "I didn't think it was on. Just looking at the time delta, I thought, 'It's going to be close, but it's not going to happen.' But then the last couple of corners, yeah, came good."

"A happy driver, fast lap time"

Beyond the raw pace, what Bonnington described speaks to something deeper — a maturing driver-engineer relationship built on trust and freedom. Mercedes had not been particularly competitive in Monaco for a considerable number of years, meaning the team entered the weekend with limited reference data. FP1 was a revelation; FP2, less so. But Antonelli's response to the Saturday morning debrief told its own story.

"He just came in this morning, we went through a few bits and pieces, jumped in the car, and completely transformed," Bonnington said. "As soon as he's happy in the car — happy driver, fast lap time."

That philosophy — giving Antonelli the freedom to enjoy driving rather than burdening him with the weight of the championship — sits at the heart of how Mercedes is managing its young star.

"We try not to focus on the goal; you always focus on the process," Bonnington explained. "Giving him the freedom to do what he enjoys, giving him the freedom to enjoy driving the car. And that's a really big thing. Let's just enjoy the journey... Let's just focus on climbing each mountain at a time."

Spotting a diamond early

Bonnington's belief in Antonelli did not begin at the start of this season. The engineer revealed that the signs of exceptional talent were visible from the very first testing laps, long before Antonelli's senior F1 debut.

"When we had him in the TPC cars, it was quite evident that he had the talent straight away," he said. "You have young drivers come along and it takes them a while to get up to speed. I think it probably took Kimi about four laps to start matching the high speed, and if you can match the high speed, you know that the kid's got some raw talent. So we knew very early on he was a diamond in the rough, just took a little bit of polishing. And it's the second year that always does it."

Antonelli, who has been part of the Mercedes junior programme since 2019 and stepped up to the senior team in 2025 following Lewis Hamilton's departure to Ferrari, has justified every ounce of that early faith. At Monaco, he did not just take pole — he made it look inevitable.