The 20-year-old Mercedes driver finished 3.857 seconds ahead of teammate George Russell, with Max Verstappen third for Red Bull. It was Antonelli’s seventh win of the season and extended his lead in the drivers’ championship. Russell is now 66 points behind.
Antonelli started near the back after penalties for power-unit changes. An early red flag, caused when Charles Leclerc crashed at the Parabolica on lap two, helped him climb the order. He was already 12th at the restart and hit the front on lap 18.
A virtual safety car on lap 29 allowed him a cheap stop onto fresh medium tyres while Russell stayed out on hards. After a failed pass on lap 49, Antonelli overtook his teammate a lap later and controlled the final three laps.
He is the first home winner of the Italian Grand Prix since Ludovico Scarfiotti in 1966. No Italian has been world champion since Ferrari’s Alberto Ascari in 1953.
“Unbelievable!” Antonelli said. “I’m so happy, I could never have imagined being here today, but we pulled it off. After the second restart, I knew I was up there and could have had a shot at the win. I believed in it, especially when I was behind George, but it was really difficult to break away with the tow being so strong.”
Russell congratulated him. “Huge congratulations to Kimi, an incredible result from him. I knew he was going to be in the mix when I saw he was P5 and P4 on the leaderboard at the beginning… I was struggling on the tyres, but I’d have loved to be P1 today.”
Ferrari’s afternoon collapsed. Leclerc forced Lewis Hamilton off at the start, then crashed out unhurt. Hamilton finished sixth, behind McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. Pole-sitter Pierre Gasly was seventh.
For the Monza crowd, an Italian winner in silver was consolation for another difficult Ferrari home race. Antonelli, from Emilia-Romagna, now carries both the championship lead and the weight of a nation’s wait.