{"id":658131,"date":"2026-05-08T17:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658131\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T17:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:14:08","slug":"toto-wolff-explains-how-pete-bonnington-has-been-a-good-mentor-and-strong-boss-for-kimi-antonelli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658131\/","title":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff explains how Pete Bonnington has been a \u2018good mentor and strong boss\u2019 for Kimi Antonelli"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toto Wolff has credited Kimi Antonelli\u2019s race engineer, Pete \u2018Bono\u2019 Bonnington, as playing a key role in the young driver\u2019s success, with Wolff praising Bonnington for being both a \u201cgood mentor\u201d and a \u201cstrong boss\u201d.<\/p>\n

Bonnington brings a wealth of experience to his role, having previously acted as a race engineer to Michael Schumacher<\/a> during the German\u2019s stint at the Mercedes<\/a> team before joining forces with Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, the pair forming a memorable partnership across Hamilton\u2019s 12 seasons at the Silver Arrows.<\/p>\n

Following Hamilton\u2019s departure for Ferrari<\/a>, Bonnington began working with Antonelli<\/a> when the Italian stepped up to Formula 1 in 2025. Now in his sophomore campaign, Antonelli\u2019s progression has seen him score three consecutive victories, becoming F1\u2019s youngest-ever championship leader<\/a> in the process.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the media after Antonelli\u2019s latest win in Miami, Wolff<\/a> was quizzed on how important Bonnington has been in terms of looking after the teenager on the radio, having been heard to warn Antonelli about track limits during the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cBono has learned from the greats, from Schumacher to Hamilton for many years and then now to Kimi,\u201d Wolff responded. \u201cHe’s been a good mentor to him, but also a strong boss.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a few times today when he had two strikes with the track limits \u2013 I said to Bono, \u2018One more and I’m gonna go on the radio\u2019, and he said, \u2018No, no, you leave that to me\u2019. That shows he just knows how to handle it. That’s good, he’s been part of the success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whilst Wolff hailed Antonelli\u2019s performance at the Miami International Autodrome as \u201chis best race so far\u201d<\/a>, the Team Principal also acknowledged that there is still a need to \u201ccontinue to mentor\u201d the 19-year-old.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look throughout his trajectory in karting and in the junior formulae, he was just outstanding,\u201d Wolff explained. \u201cWhen you think about what we said last year, it’s exactly how his performance, how his development happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had these great ups and moments of brilliance and then moments where he was allowed to make mistakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe needed to calibrate and continue to mentor him whilst having pressure on him. He’s able to analyse it, but then don’t overthink it. He compartmentalises it \u2013 \u2018Okay, I made a mistake. I put it away.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI think all of us collectively that are close to him, we need to keep re-emphasising and repeating the message. This is a long game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toto Wolff has credited Kimi Antonelli\u2019s race engineer, Pete \u2018Bono\u2019 Bonnington, as playing a key role in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-658131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}