Mercedes post-F1 Italian GP debrief reveals what went wrong for Kimi Antonelli at the start of last weekend’s Grand Prix.
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli suffered a poor start from P6 on the grid at last weekend’s Italian Grand Prix. A strong qualifying performance saw the young Italian line up in P6 on the grid behind his teammate for his first home Grand Prix. Despite his strong showing in qualifying, Antonelli was hampered by a poor start, leaving it all to do on Sunday.
Mercedes’ deputy technical director Simone Resta revealed the cause of Antonelli’s difficult Sunday afternoon in the team’s Italian GP debrief. A small error on his clutch application led to a disappointing start, dropping the Italian to P10.
“Essentially Kimi, after quite a sequence of start practise, he wasn’t able to go right on the target in terms of clutch position,” Resta revealed in the debrief. “That essentially created a lot of wheel spin in the first phase of the start and he found himself basically in P10 after Turn 1.”
Resta was then asked about the challenge of an F1 race start. The Mercedes man explained that the minute input required, coupled with the pressure of the start, make it very difficult. While he had noted Antonelli had practiced the start procedure, he delved into the complex factors associated with a start.
“It’s a very difficult phase,” Resta explained. “I mean of course there is a lot of heat of the moment, there’s a lot of pressure, you need to be able to have the tyres in the right temperature, you need to be very precise with the clutch drop.
“It’s very important the reaction time to really be able to start the car as soon as possible after the lights are going. So it’s a very complex moment, there’s a lot of pressure and yeah you have to get everything right.”
Resta continued on to discuss the team’s race strategy, which allowed Antonelli to eventually finish P9. He explained the team’s decision making process which led to Antonelli’s lap 28 pit stop. The pit stop seemed to come early in comparison to the front runners, while later than many of the cars around.
Resta explained that the team elected to stop Antonelli to alleviate any risk of an undercut from behind. He also noted a slight decline the Italians pace on his medium tyres.
“Kimi’s pace was good at that moment,” Resta noted as he reflected on the race strategy. “But if you look in detail you could see that he was starting to lose a little bit of pace.
“We were concerned about the cars who stopped earlier and they were battling with us in the initial part of the race and we didn’t want to fall back behind them and be forced to overtake them again. So that was the main choice in deciding to pit Kimi.”
