Representative image: Kimi Antonelli in practice for the 2025 Singapore Grand Prix. Photo: Liauzh, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Singapore Grand Prix line attributed to Kim Kardashian, “Nooo Kimi, I don’t dare to touch your towel this time,” exists as white block capitals on a graphic. The Instagram post that carries it includes no video, no audio and no name for whoever heard her say it.
The graphic opens a five-slide carousel posted October 12 by @mercedesamgf1motorsport under the caption “The towel story continues 😂.” The account carries Instagram’s blue verification check and roughly 430,000 followers. Its bio describes it as a “Mercedes-AMG F1 Motorsport Fanpage” that is “Unofficial and not affiliated with Mercedes F1.” By Wednesday the post had about 46,400 likes.
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What the five slides show
The first slide is a photo of Kardashian at the Singapore Airlines-branded media backdrop, both palms raised, facing someone in a quilted silver jacket who is shot from behind. That person’s face never appears. One reply under the post, with a few dozen likes, says “Thats george.” The official Mercedes team account’s gallery from the weekend includes Antonelli posing in the garage in a silver jacket that appears to match, which is the best evidence that the person in the photo is him.
Slides two and three revisit June, tagged “Monaco 2026” and “Barcelona 2026.” Slide four is an ad for Kimi Antonelli T-shirts in black or white, with “Link in bio!” and a 10 percent discount code built from the account’s handle. Slide five asks you to follow for more.
Kardashian may well have said those words in Singapore. The carousel doesn’t show her saying them, the caption doesn’t say who heard them, and the account that made it sells Antonelli merchandise two swipes later. The caption on Mercedes’ own Singapore gallery doesn’t mention a towel at all.
How a towel became a running joke
It started after Antonelli won in Monaco on June 7. Reuters reported that television images appeared to show Kardashian, at the race with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, picking the folded towel off the No. 1 marker, wiping her face and sunglasses with it and walking away with it. Mercedes and Antonelli turned it into a bit the following week.
In a garage video Mercedes posted ahead of the Barcelona-Catalunya weekend, Antonelli asked, “Have you seen my towel?” George Russell said he hadn’t. Asked in the drivers’ press conference whether he’d found it, Antonelli said he was “still looking for it.” After practice, a second Mercedes video showed him being handed a white towel embroidered “To Kimi from Kim.” He said “Thank you Kim” and draped it around his neck. Hamilton won that race on June 14, ending Antonelli’s run of five straight victories.
Where Singapore left the title fight
The race in Singapore went to Max Verstappen on October 11. Antonelli still leads the championship with 340 points to Russell’s 238, a 102-point margin with six rounds left, according to the official standings. That gap was 84 points after Russell’s engine failure in Bahrain.
Next up is the United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas, October 23 to 25, where the $450 grounds pass has already sold out. Hamilton will be in Austin with Ferrari, and so will the winner’s towel, folded on the No. 1 marker.
So who wrote the Singapore line: Kim Kardashian, or a fan page with T-shirts to sell?
Sources: @mercedesamgf1motorsport Instagram post (October 12, 2026); Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team Instagram; Formula 1 official race results and driver standings; Reuters.
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