British GP: Mercedes accept blame for Kimi Antonelli’s costly mechanical failure at Silverstone | F1 News

Mercedes have accepted the blame for Kimi Antonelli’s mechanical failure which likely cost him victory at the British Grand Prix and saw him score no points in the Silverstone race.

Antonelli was rapidly closing down race leader Charles Leclerc until a wheel-shield failure with 11 laps to go saw him lose performance as he struggled to turn into the corners.

Initially unaware of what the problem was, Mercedes pitted him twice to try to resolve the issue, removing the debris at the last pit stop but Antonelli had now dropped to 10th.

As Antonelli wrestled his Mercedes, he went off the track and was given a five-second time penalty for exceeding track limits, so dropped to 16th due to the field being bunched under a safety-car finish.

“It’s on us. A car should not break. I don’t think the ride was worse than any laps before,” Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff told Sky Sports F1.

“He couldn’t turn any more. We haven’t done the post-mortem for what’s happened. It’s just fury we have at the moment.”

Antonelli called his penalty “a joke” on the team radio and Mercedes are considering if they can do anything to remove the penalty.

Wolff said: “We’re definitely looking at a situation where we can avoid that penalty for track limits.

“He was basically surviving from lap to lap and saying that he could do that. In the end, if we’re able to get rid of that penalty, these points would be decisive in the championship.”

Antonelli lost ground to team-mate George Russell for the third consecutive race with his advantage cut to 25 points over Russell and 32 points over Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers’ Championship.

Replays suggested Antonelli’s wheel shield was damaged when he ran over the exit kerb at the high-speed Copse Corner. However, the Italian pointed out he did not drive any differently to any other laps through that turn.

“On that lap, I probably hit it [the kerb] even less than previous laps. And I could feel instantly something broke,” he told Sky Sports F1.

“I just didn’t know what was going on, and also the team, was trying to understand initially we thought it was the front wing, but then it wasn’t the front wing.

“It didn’t go our way and it’s a shame because we had a real shot for the win. It’s one extra motivation to be back stronger and be even better.”

Russell: Points gap is probably correct

Antonelli’s failure was not the only issue for Mercedes during the race as Russell suffered a slow puncture when battling for third.

Mercedes gambled by not pitting Russell when the late-race safety car came out, so he recovered to second and the British driver admitted he should have finished behind Leclerc and Antonelli, had the luck been equal.

“Strange emotions, really nice to finally stand on the podium here at Silverstone with the family here,” Russell told Sky Sports F1.

“It’s not been the nicest to me, Silverstone, in the years gone by. So I’ll take it, but it’s still a lot of work to do because of the pace in qualifying, the straight-line speed wasn’t good enough, in the race it was better, but the pace was not there.

“We need to understand why and if I want to fight for this championship, we need to do better.”

Both Mercedes drivers have suffered from misfortune across the opening nine rounds, but recently Antonelli has been on the wrong end, after a battery failure in Spain, Max Verstappen’s Austria crash causing an abnormal end to qualifying, and now the Silverstone wheel-shield failure.

In the last three events, though, Antonelli has largely been the faster driver and Russell thinks he deserves to be behind in the championship.

“Whether the luck has balanced out or not, I’m not sure. However, based on my performances and based on his performances over the course of these nine races, I think probably a 25-point gap in his favour is probably correct,” he said.

“He has done a better job than me this year to this point, so he deserves to be ahead of me. Whether it should be 25 points, whether it should be 10 points, whether it should be 35 points is a debate, but in that ballpark.

“I obviously lost 15 points as well in Monaco with the drive-through penalty. I think anywhere from 10 to 30 points behind is probably about fair.”

Formula 1’s summer run continues with the Belgian Grand Prix at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps on July 17-19, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – no contract, cancel anytime