Precarious reliability
The reliability problems faced by Mercedes during the first half of the season are about to catch up with the Brackley team. It is now known that the World Championship leader, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, will start from the back of the grid at the Italian GP in Monza due to the power unit change that the team led by Toto Wolff has decided to make precisely at the Brianzola race, hoping that the long and very fast straights of the ‘Temple of Speed’ will allow the young Bolognese talent to recover and limit the damage in the standings.
Speaking to journalists at the press conference after the conclusion of the Zandvoort race, however, Wolff confirmed that a similar situation during the season will also have to be faced by George Russell, currently second in the World Championship – tied with Lewis Hamilton – 59 points behind his teammate.
Wolff’s reflections
“With Kimi we will change the entire power unit – Wolff warned – in theory our calculations tell us that [Monza] is the best track to take penalties. Obviously the ‘algorithms’ do not take into account the nationality of the driver, but since there is a World Championship at stake we have to try to get the maximum points. With George, however, discussions are still ongoing about where to take it [the penalty]”.
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One hypothesis could be Baku, which was initially also considered as an alternative to Monza for Antonelli, before being discarded. If the ‘where’ is still under discussion, what now seems certain is the need for the English #63 to also have to use an additional unit from now until the end of the season beyond those allowed by the regulations. All this obviously without taking into account possible further accidents or technical failures which, especially in the first season of a new regulation, are always lurking.
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