(Motorsport-Total.com) – Mercedes also wins the fourth race of this year’s season, but the biggest weakness of the Silver Arrows remains unmistakable in Miami: the start. World Championship leader Kimi Antonelli lost a total of six positions at the sprint start on Saturday, and at least two places in the race on Sunday.
Read more Pirelli boss Mario Isola looks back and reveals an open wish
Already in the first three race weekends of the year, the Italian had lost a total of 18 positions during the first lap and then fought his way back forward each time. But the lead is shrinking, and Ferrari, McLaren, and Red Bull are now closing in on the Silver Arrows.
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff even described the previous starts in an interview with Sky as “not acceptable” for a team that wants to win both world championships. “We have to get this under control, we’ve been looking at this for far too long.”
As with the first races of the year, the Austrian absolves his driver of any responsibility. “It is absolutely not his fault,” Wolff said when asked by Motorsport.com, a sister platform of Motorsport-Total.com in the Motorsport Network.
“I think it was a team error. We all know: this is simply not good enough,” emphasizes the Mercedes team boss. “We are not doing a good job of giving them the right tools – whether it’s the clutch or the assessment of grip.”
Kimi Antonelli largely sees the blame with himself
“[On Sunday] it was, to be fair, not quite as bad. I lost two places, in the sprint even six, so it was somewhat better. But still, that is not acceptable,” Antonelli himself also says. “Especially on a weekend like this, where the gaps are much smaller, it can completely change the course of the race.”
“I think this is a point where we also have to work together with the team, because yesterday, for example, in the sprint, the procedure was good, but the grip we expected simply wasn’t there,” explains the 19-year-old Italian the background.
Unlike Wolff, Antonelli also sees himself as responsible. “It is also the team’s fault, but above all mine, because I am still somewhat inconsistent, especially with the clutch. I still lack the necessary confidence to get it right consistently.”
Read more Valtteri Bottas: The Cadillac steering wheel is still not working properly
“I am still a bit uncertain, so this is an important point I need to work on. But I think [on Sunday] I did better than [on Saturday]. I was very frustrated then, and now I just stayed calmer, performed better, and was able to focus on the race.”
Toto Wolff admits: Mercedes has catching up to do
In the first races of the year, Mercedes’ lead was still large enough to compensate for the weak starts. But Wolff admits that this cannot be a permanent state: “We are the only ones who haven’t managed this for several races.”
The last 25 World Championship leaders in Formula 1
“We have to dig deeper and understand how to fix this. The gaps are not big enough to comfortably drive into the sunset. That’s why you can’t mess up starts.” And the Austrian knows that the solution must come from their own strength.
Because the FIA, the world governing body for motorsport, currently plans no changes to the start procedure that would benefit the Silver Arrows. The topic is politically sensitive because Ferrari has a competitive advantage due to deliberate development decisions (such as a smaller turbo) and logically does not want to give this up.
New safety system brings no advantage to Mercedes
In Miami and Montreal, the FIA is testing a safety system to detect low power starts (“low power start detection”). This detects when cars show “abnormally low acceleration” after releasing the clutch.
In such a case, a limited MGU-K deployment is automatically triggered to ensure a minimum level of acceleration. However, the FIA made it clear that this is not a performance aid but is intended to prevent dangerous situations – such as in Australia, when Franco Colapinto narrowly avoided the stationary Liam Lawson.
“This is not meant to be a mechanism that tempts teams to use it intentionally,” says FIA Formula Sport Director Nikolas Tombazis. “It only turns a catastrophic start into a bad one – but never a bad one into a good one.” Thus, optimizing starts, alongside the big update package for Montreal, remains at the top of Mercedes’ priority list.
Read more F1 drivers demand more rule power for Formula 1 drivers