The young driver will read the entire text for the first time this weekend at the Imola Grand Prix, which includes a portion of the message that Lewis Hamilton left for Kimi Antonelli in the Mercedes rookie’s driver’s room.
Hamilton wrote a handwritten note for the driver who would take over for him once he switched to Ferrari in 2025 during the Italian Grand Prix in Monza last year.
When Mercedes travels to Imola for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix this weekend, Antonelli will read the entire note because the team uses the same motorhome for all of its European races.
Ahead of lights out, Mercedes’ race team co-ordinator, Stephen Lord, recalled the moment Hamilton left the note for Antonelli and even revealed parts of its content.
Lewis Hamilton shows class with Kimi Antonelli message
“It’s quite an interesting insight into Lewis that perhaps people don’t see,” Lord told Beyond The Grid. “It was after the race in Monza, obviously the last European round. Lewis was upstairs. He did the engineering debrief.
“In Europe we have the race base, where we have like an engineering suite on the top floor and at the back of the engineering suite, the drivers have their own rooms, so they have a room where they have massage beds and all of their kit is laid out ready. Then they have a bathroom with a shower and a toilet.
“Lewis had finished engineering. I think the engineers had left so Lewis was upstairs in the room on his own. I popped up, grabbed a couple of bits, came back down the stairs, and Lewis came down the stairs ready to leave and head home.
“He got to the bottom of the stairs and he stopped, then he turned around and he went back upstairs. I thought ‘he’s forgotten something,’ didn’t think much of it. He came back down about 10 minutes later and he grabbed a guy that works for the team, Carlos, who’s our head of race team logistics.
“And you could see that Lewis was really quite emotional and he grabbed Carlos and said, ‘it’s only just occurred to me, I’m never going to see that room ever again. I’m really emotional. I can’t leave. I feel kind of sad to walk away from that room because I’ve been in that room for so many years and I’m never going to see it again.’ He was really quite touched that he was leaving it behind.”
But it was when Lord went up to the room following Hamilton’s exit where he discovered the note that the seven-time world champion had left for Anotnelli.
“I walked into the room and on the wall there’s quite a long, handwritten note,” he added. “It was a note to Kimi and it was basically welcoming him to his new room, and it was wishing him the best of luck, saying some really nice things about the team and how, ‘if you care for them, they’ll care for you because they’re a great team.’
“I thought, ‘wow, what a nice thing to do.’ And actually we’ve had glass cut and it’s now covered in the room so it will be there forever more.”
Hamilton also showed his more playful side with one bonus message in the bathroom.
“I thought I’d just go into the toilet and make sure that everything’s been packed away and we’ve got all we need,” Lord went on.
“I entered the bathroom and saw ‘Lewis was here’ with a large smiley face next to the toilet, above the toilet roll holder, and I thought, ‘Okay, I like that.'” However, the note to Kimi was quite unique.
