Toto Wolff didn’t think Kimi Antonelli would have chased Charles Leclerc in F1 British GP, as he adds on the unfortunate misery that hit him.
It was going on programme for Mercedes in 2026 F1 British GP, at least on the side of Antonelli. The team delayed his pit stop and decided to use the fresh tyres at the end to pass Ferrari’s Leclerc. It looked like a strange call at that moment, which even team boss Wolff was not sure about.
Eventually, he started to believe when he could see Antonelli catching Leclerc at such a pace that the pass for the F1 British GP lead was on. It didn’t translate in the end due to the sudden break of wheel shield on the left-front of Antonelli’s Mercedes’ car.
Wolff was not confident on Antonelli’s strategy
“For the race, bittersweet,” said Wolff in his post-race print media session in F1 British GP. “There’s the sweet part that George, after so many days of struggling and not gelling with the car, was able to secure P2. And on the other side, Kimi, that was the victory to play.
“He made huge steps towards Charles at the end. Personally, I didn’t believe that it was possible, but my intuition was wrong and the strategists with the data were right, and they said we’re going to catch him six laps to the end with a huge tyre offset.
“Yeah, that was on the menu, but obviously then we had the problem with the wheel shield that broke,” summed up Wolff. When asked about the issue, if it was something fundamental as Antonelli suggested on radio, or just the wheel shield/brake-duct that got bust, the Austrian said, it is not clear yet.
Wolff shares initial detail on Antonelli’s issue
Initially, they couldn’t spot the problem, which is why they only changed tyres in the pit stop. But once Antonelli toured the Silverstone circuit, they identified what was flapping on the front-left. They called him in to remove it, but the difficulty persisted for the Italian.
They thought about retirement, but Antonelli wanted to continue. “It looks like it’s a brake duct with a caped-in wheel shield, but something got stuck in there and that’s why it wasn’t able to turn,” said Wolff. “I’ve seen the car, but it’s not yet clear.
“We’re going to take the whole car back to the factory in order to take it apart there to really see where it happened, how it happened, and why we had so severe consequences of him not being able to turn,” summed up Wolff, who noted that he would have made the call to retire.
Wolff would have called in to retire but praises Antonelli’s push
But he praised the will from Antonelli to continue on as he did. He finished eighth but track limits pnalty meant, he dropped outside the points. While there was a thought of filing in a right of review, but they have likely decided against it, as the FIA noted in their penalty document.
The stewards highlighted that a mechanical issue cannot be the reason to abuse track limits. “Yeah, I know,” Wolff started. “If it was me, I would have made the call only about me, I would have made the call ten laps to the end, because of safety issues, but then suspension looked ok.
“That’s the biggest issue, and he was just basically surviving from lap to lap and saying that he could do that. And at the end, if we’re able to get rid of the penalty, these points could be the size of a championship,” summed up Wolff.
Driver excitement likely cost places at start
Regarding the race starts, both Antonelli and George Russell lost places in F1 British GP. The Italian lost to the Ferrari cars, while the Brit fell into the clutches of Lando Norris and Max Verstappen. Mercedes has faced issues on the start side, but have improved in the course of the season.
It looked like another of their bad starts, but post-race Wolff assessed that the initial finding showed driver excitement rather than fault of their start system. “Yeah, I think today it looks like more driver excitement, getting out of the blocks with both,” he revealed.
“But I’m saying that with the limited amount of information that I have in our analysis ten minutes after the start where I asked what it was,” summed up Wolff. With the points gained for Russell (154), he is now only 25 behind Antonelli (179) in the drivers’ standings, while seven ahead of Hamilton (147).
