Mercedes celebrated sealing the Formula 1 constructors' championship with three rounds to spare at Interlagos, yet the historic milestone was overshadowed by a baffling technical mystery. For the first time in the 2026 season, the Silver Arrows missed out on a podium finish as both Kimi Antonelli and George Russell reported "strange behaviour" from their W17 machines throughout a chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix.
The troubles began when Russell suffered an uncharacteristic spin exiting the pitlane on soft tyres. Shortly after, an even more dramatic moment struck world champion Antonelli, who lost control of the race lead while being relentlessly hunted by Lando Norris. Although the Italian prodigy initially recovered to second place, his pace evaporated rapidly, allowing both Red Bull drivers to breeze past as he ultimately crossed the finish line in fifth place, right behind his teammate.
Antonelli made no secret of his intense frustration following a race that slipped away from their grasp. "I'm very angry, to be fair... very disappointing, because we were on for the win up to that point," the young Italian stated. "Also on the slick, once I was able to get some temperature, I was getting into the rhythm. But the spin came, which is still something I need to look at, because I don't know why I lost the rear so quickly as well."
He further emphasized the sudden and unpredictable nature of the handling trait. "Like, no warning, nothing. But already, to be fair, when I put the soft on, I felt something weird with the car, so we need to check what happened. Shame, because we lost the race there," Antonelli added.
Russell, who salvaged a fourth-place finish, admitted he rolled the dice in search of a breakthrough result. "I went quite high risk because I smelt an opportunity and paid the price," remarked the #63 driver. Despite his early race mishap, Russell took solace from displaying genuinely competitive race pace on the soft compound for the first time in months.
However, the overarching concern for team principal Toto Wolff and his engineers remains the baffling lack of performance once the field switched to intermediate wet tyres. The Brackley squad is now deep into telemetry analysis to decode the tyre behavior before heading into the sub-zero challenges of the upcoming Las Vegas Grand Prix.
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