Kimi Antonelli admitted he had a “difficult second half” at Zandvoort, where he finished runner-up and 11 seconds behind winner Lando Norris. Mercedes has since launched a deep investigation into the mystery behind that performance drop.
The young Italian started the Grand Prix brilliantly. After qualifying third, he overtook teammate George Russell to secure second place by the end of lap one. However, as the race progressed, Kimi Antonelli began to feel something was off with the balance of his W17.
“It was really weird because I felt good with the medium. I felt decent on the first hard, but then on the second one it just felt really odd,” Antonelli explained after finishing behind Norris. He admitted losing confidence in the car late in the race, especially while defending against the charging Ferrari duo of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, plus Russell closing in from behind.
This prompted Mercedes to conduct a thorough investigation. Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin revealed that each tyre change brought more oversteer, and the team is puzzled. “We didn't change the car, we didn't add any aero balance, so we're having a real deep dive into the data to get to the bottom of it,” he said in the team's debrief video.
Shovlin stressed the importance of solving this before the next race in Italy, Antonelli's home. “It's obviously getting really tight now in terms of performance. We're still waiting for our major update to land and that will help but in the meantime, it is going to be a bit of a fight,” he added.
Despite the issues, Antonelli managed to secure second after Russell, on a different strategy, let him through. “George, you know, I have to thank him because he made my life a lot easier. But I still think we took a bit of risk with the strategy, both for me and George,” Antonelli said. He believes P2 was the maximum achievable, given McLaren's pace in the second half.
With Monza approaching, Mercedes hopes to find the root cause. Antonelli will also face an engine penalty due to reliability issues, so the car's performance must be spot-on to fight in front of his home crowd.
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