Slow-motion starts: in four starts Antonelli and Russell lost 21 positions

The dominance at the start of the year

The first three races of this season have seen Mercedes as the sole, great protagonist: while in Australia the Anglo-German team celebrated George Russell’s success, complete with a one-two finish thanks to Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s 2° place, the finishing order was reversed in China, with the first career victory for the young driver from Bologna. In the last weekend in Japan, Antonelli achieved his second consecutive win, with Russell in this case off the podium in fourth position. These results allow Mercedes to hold the lead in the world championship, but despite this, there is a problem that the Brackley team will have to work on before returning to the track in Brackley.

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The negative starts

Just like other teams such as Audi, Mercedes has particularly suffered with starts. Despite monopolizing the front row in all three GPs (including the Sprint in China), the two drivers encountered difficulties when the green lights went on, ending up losing a total of 21 positions. This is a difficulty that Ferrari did not experience, nor did a team like McLaren, which also uses Mercedes power units. Admitting what is wrong was the Technical Deputy Director of the Brackley team, Simone Resta: “We know that it is probably one of the weak points, if not the weakest, of our car at the moment – he explained in a video released by the team – we are working with the highest priority on this aspect to try to improve it ahead of the next races. We know, for example, looking at McLaren’s start at Suzuka, that our power unit can start well. We will do our best to improve our performance in this area for Miami and try to defend as best as possible any position we manage to gain in qualifying.”

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Despite the two victories, Antonelli was the one who suffered the most from the problem at the start for Mercedes, as shown by the higher number of positions lost compared to his teammate at the start.

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Andrea Kimi Antonelli

George Russell