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TEENAGE DREAMS: The 10 youngest drivers to race in F1 – and how they all fared – as Antonelli gets set for his debut
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Kimi Antonelli will become the third-youngest driver in F1 history when he represents Mercedes at the 2025 Australian Grand Prix, aged 18 years, six months and 19 days old. But who currently makes the top 10 in the sport’s all-time list and what happened after their respective debut weekends? F1.com has the answers…
#10 – Daniil Kvyat – Australia 2014 – 19 years, 10 months, 18 days
GP3 champion Kvyat stepped up to F1 with the then-named Toro Rosso in 2014, reaching Q3 and scoring points on his debut and doing well enough over the course of the year to secure a Red Bull promotion when Sebastian Vettel shocked the paddock by moving to Ferrari.
Kvyat’s time at the senior team was short-lived though. After a solid first campaign alongside Daniel Ricciardo, his tricky start to 2016 – which included a clash with Vettel on home soil in Russia – saw Red Bull put Max Verstappen in his place after just four races.
From there, it was always going to be difficult to recover, with Toro Rosso dropping Kvyat in late-2017 amid a downward spiral, only to swiftly bring him back for two more seasons – the highlight being a surprise podium finish at the rain-hit 2019 German Grand Prix.
Kvyat will lose his place in the top 10 youngest starter list when Antonelli arrives on the grid
#9 – Esteban Tuero – Australia 1998 – 19 years, 10 months, 14 days
Esteban Tuero’s deal with Minardi for 1998 led to plenty of chatter in the F1 paddock, given that the Argentinian youngster did not meet all of the FIA’s Super Licence requirements, but the governing body ultimately allowed him to contest the season.
It was a difficult year running around at the back for the Buenos Aires native, who managed to experience a home Grand Prix weekend but otherwise finished just four out of 16 races – telling Minardi afterwards that he would be walking away from the sport.
READ MORE: F1’s ultimate underdogs? 5 of Minardi, Toro Rosso and AlphaTauri’s greatest moments
Tuero spent just one season in F1 with Minardi before heading back home to Argentina
#8 – Fernando Alonso – Australia 2001 – 19 years, 7 months, 3 days
Alonso was one of three future stars to debut in F1 in 2001, alongside Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya, with the Spaniard – like Tuero – starting out at backmarker team Minardi but still managing to show his potential over the course of the campaign.
He stepped back to a reserve role with Renault the following year (his manager Flavio Briatore running that team), before returning full-time in 2003 to claim his first pole positions, Grand Prix wins and build towards a breakthrough 2005/2006 championship double for the French manufacturer.
READ MORE: ‘He could perform miracles’ – Alonso’s debut F1 season remembered by those who were there
Alonso has since experienced stints with varying levels of success at McLaren, Ferrari, Renault’s rebranded Alpine team and, most recently, Aston Martin, but the now 43-year-old – the oldest driver on the current F1 grid – continues to chase that elusive third world title.
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#7 – Ricardo Rodriguez – Italy 1961 – 19 years, 6 months, 27 days
Rodriguez was a talented cyclist and motorcyclist growing up and seamlessly transferred those skills when he started racing cars – becoming the youngest person to stand on the overall podium at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the youngest person to start an F1 race in quick succession.
He qualified a brilliant second during a guest appearance with Ferrari at Monza in 1961 and returned for several Grands Prix the following year, only to be involved in a fatal crash – aged just 20 – while practicing for a non-championship race in a Rob Walker-entered Lotus at home in Mexico.
TREMAYNE: The tragic story of Mexico’s F1 heroes Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez
It was a similar story for Rodriguez’s brother, Pedro, who enjoyed success in sportscars and F1 but also lost his life while competing in an Interserie event at the Norisring in 1971 – Mexico City’s circuit thus being named in their honour as the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
Ricardo Rodriguez showed plenty of promise before a crash cut his life and career short
#6 – Mike Thackwell – Canada 1980 – 19 years, 5 months, 29 days
Thackwell took F1’s youngest starter record from the late Rodriguez at the 1980 Canadian Grand Prix, making his first official appearance for Tyrrell – alongside full-time European F2 duties – after failing to qualify with Arrows in the Netherlands earlier that season.
He made one more Grand Prix start with RAM in 1984, the same year in which the New Zealander claimed the F2 title, before trying his hand at a range of other categories across the single-seaters and endurance worlds – winning prestigious races such as the Pau Grand Prix and Nürburgring 1000km.
Thackwell made a handful of F1 outings around success in the European F2 championship
#5 – Lando Norris – Australia 2019 – 19 years, 4 months, 4 days
Norris was signed by McLaren while climbing the single-seater ranks, spending 2018 as the team’s test and reserve driver and appearing in plenty of Friday practice sessions, before being given a full-time chance for 2019 alongside another new signing in Carlos Sainz.
After scoring a solid haul of points in his debut season, Norris achieved a maiden podium at the 2020 opener and topped up his tally through 2021, 2022 and 2023, when a revitalised, restructured McLaren started to emerge as a genuine front-running force.
In 2024, Norris landed an emotional first win at the Miami Grand Prix and added three more over the course of the season as McLaren grew stronger and stronger – results that contributed to the Woking-based team’s first constructors’ title since 1998.
A fresh-faced Norris graduated to F1 with McLaren some six years ago
#4 – Jaime Alguersuari – Hungary 2009 – 19 years, 4 months, 3 days
Alguersuari is another Red Bull junior to be involved in a mid-season swap, earning promotion to Toro Rosso in place of Sebastien Bourdais at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix while contesting Formula Renault 3.5 – a campaign he completed despite his new F1 commitments.
He continued for the 2010 and 2011 seasons, collecting more than 30 points across that period and recording a best finish of seventh on two occasions, but was dropped by Red Bull chiefs for 2012 and could not put a deal together to return with another team.
Alguersuari continued his motorsport career in Formula E and GT competition, only to fall out of love with the sport, retire from racing altogether and turn his attention to making music – he now produces and performs as DJ ‘Squire’ (a nod to his second surname Escudero).
Alguersuari was thrown in at the deep end as part of a 2009 mid-season driver swap
#3 – Oliver Bearman – Saudi Arabia 2024 – 18 years, 10 months, 1 day
Bearman burst onto the F1 scene at last year’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with the Ferrari junior – who had already claimed F2 pole position at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit – being drafted in to replace the unwell Carlos Sainz from final practice onwards.
Despite that limited running, the Briton started a very respectable 11th on the grid and climbed to a fine seventh position on race day, while eclipsing the late Ricardo Rodriguez’s record as the youngest driver to enter a Grand Prix for the Scuderia.
INSIGHT: How Ferrari super-sub Bearman made his mark on and off the track in Saudi Arabia
With another two races coming the Briton's way in 2024, as he turned out for Haas in Azerbaijan and Brazil, he can now look forward to his first full season in F1 with the US squad.
2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix: Oliver Bearman's impressive F1 debut race drive
#2 – Lance Stroll – Australia 2017 – 18 years, 4 months, 25 days
Stroll was a member of Ferrari’s junior programme early in his career but departed ahead of the 2016 season – when he won the European F3 title – to become a Williams test driver, which involved extensive F1 preparation in older machinery at tracks around the world.
He stepped into a full-time seat for 2017 with support from billionaire businessman father Lawrence, quashing some of the doubts around that promotion via a maiden points finish at home in Canada, an impressive podium in Azerbaijan and a second row start in the rain at Monza.
Lawrence’s subsequent takeover of Force India saw Stroll junior move to new surroundings at the rebranded Racing Point, where he claimed a shock pole position at the 2020 Turkish Grand Prix, before the team morphed into the Aston Martin operation he still represents today.
Stroll was next in a long line of youngsters to be given an F1 chance by Williams
#1 – Max Verstappen – Australia 2015 – 17 years, 5 months, 13 days
Verstappen tops the all-time youngest starter list with a spectacular rise to the top echelon, the Dutchman completing just one season of single-seater racing before joining Red Bull’s junior line-up and making his F1 debut for Toro Rosso in 2015 as a 17-year-old.
While his talent was still raw, Red Bull knew they had someone special on their hands and, as covered above, promoted Verstappen to the main team just a handful of races into the 2016 season – an immediate victory in Spain setting the scene for the years ahead.
Fast forward to 2025 and the 27-year-old is a four-time World Champion – behind only Juan Manuel Fangio, Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton – with 40 pole positions, 63 Grand Prix wins, 112 podium finishes and more than 3,000 points to his name.
Max Verstappen: The DNA of a Champion
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