Kym Illman F1

The other day, I asked you what you would rather: an Italian driver to win the Italian GP in Monza, or a Ferrari driver to win it?

Andrea Kimi Antonelli leads the F1 World Drivers' Championship, and the 20-year-old Italian driver has become a national icon back at home with his success this year. With the Italian GP next week in Monza, he will no doubt be a very popular man when he arrives at the track.

At just 19 years old, Kimi Antonelli has become one of the biggest sporting stories in Italy this year — and it's about way more than just racing. Antonelli currently leads the 2026 Drivers' Championship at the halfway point of the season, and if he goes on to become Kimi Antonelli world champion, he'd be Italy's first F1 world champion since Alberto Ascari back in 1953. In this video, I dig into all the Kimi Antonelli news behind his meteoric rise, from being compared to tennis star Jannik Sinner in what's being called "Antonelli mania," to reports of a possible Vatican audience with the Pope. This isn't just about Kimi Antonelli fans getting excited over race wins — the Bologna-born teenager is being embraced as a genuine national hero, and I break down exactly how and why it happened so fast at Mercedes.

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A GRAND PRIX WEEKEND, IN PRINT

These mini coffee table photo books are made for F1 fans who want something a little more permanent than a camera roll.

Each edition brings together a hand-picked set of images from race weekends around the world, printed across 24 premium layflat pages on thick substrate card.

They’re compact, beautifully finished and made to sit proudly on a desk, shelf or coffee table. A great gift for an F1 fan, or one for your own collection.

Browse the range in my SHOP at kymillman.com

The two most sponsored teams in the F1 paddock are, unsurprisingly, Ferrari and McLaren. The Scuderia has 42 sponsors, whereas McLaren has a whopping 55 sponsors.

Cadillac is new to F1 and is no doubt relying on the big financial backing of General Motors in the team's first year in the sport. The team has the fewest sponsors in the paddock, with just 9 businesses providing funds to the team in 2026!

You may refer to the team that Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar (plus Liam Lawson) drive for as Red Bull, but the official name for the team is Oracle Red Bull Racing - and Oracle pays big bucks for their name to be used alongside the team's name.

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Ever wondered how much it costs to sponsor an F1 team? In this video, I break down real F1 sponsorship prices, from entry-level logo deals worth around $500,000 a year, right up to Oracle’s Red Bull deal worth a staggering $110 million a year. I cover the full breakdown of Formula 1 sponsor costs by tier, why F1 sponsorship costs vary so wildly between teams, and how much F1 teams make from sponsors. If you want to know how much it costs to sponsor an F1 team, make sure to watch the entire video!