– “First of all, I have to get off the line properly,” says Kimi Antonelli about his racing prospects in Miami. However, this has been the big problem for the Italian so far this season: “So far it hasn’t been that good,” the polesitter has to admit.
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At the season opener in Australia, Antonelli lost five positions in the first lap, six positions in the sprint in China, only one position in the race the next day, and five again in the race in Japan. And also in yesterday’s sprint, it was three positions again – ergo: Antonelli lost places at every start in 2026.
This was partly due to him, but also partly due to Mercedes itself. “It was a technical error on our side,” Mercedes motorsport chief Toto Wolff admitted after the sprint in Miami, thus taking Antonelli out of responsibility. “That was not his fault.”
F1: Grand Prix of Miami (USA) 2026
The Austrian admits that Mercedes still needs to do some work on starts, because teammate George Russell also very rarely gets off the line well. “Maybe we made it a bit too complicated,” he says to Sky.
Because the customer teams of Mercedes do not have the same problems as the factory team: “Williams has the same engine, the same gearbox. So it can’t be that we have a hardware problem there,” Wolff says.
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According to him, it is about how Mercedes calibrates the clutch – which makes it difficult for the drivers to hit the right point. “He definitely has to release the clutch well tomorrow,” Wolff says about Antonelli’s upcoming start, because that has also been an issue so far: In China, Antonelli let the clutch slip a bit too much – and got off the line poorly.
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But in the sprint, Antonelli said he did everything right for the first time – and still it didn’t work well. So it seems to be a bit a matter of luck whether the Italian doesn’t lose positions at the start tonight.
A start behind the safety car could of course help, should it rain despite the advanced start. Because then the clutch would not be an issue and the lead would be guaranteed for the time being.
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