Mercedes has launched a detailed investigation to understand why Kimi Antonelli lost performance during the Formula 1 Dutch GP. The Italian finished second, but revealed he faced a ‘difficult second half’ in the Zandvoort race.
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The young Italian started from third position and gained second place from George Russell on the first lap. However, performance dropped as tire changes progressed, with the driver reporting increasing difficulty finding balance in the W17.
“It was really strange because I felt good on the medium tire. I felt reasonably good on the first hard, but then, on the second, it felt very strange,” Antonelli explained after finishing behind Lando Norris. The Italian driver also stated that he had ‘little confidence in the car’ in the final part of the race.
Mercedes confirmed that it is analyzing the data to discover the origin of the problem before the next round in Italy. Andrew Shovlin, the team’s trackside engineering director, highlighted that each set of tires presented more difficult behavior than the previous one: “Each tire had a bit more oversteer than the previous tire and we are trying to understand why,” he stated.
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Shovlin emphasized that the team did not make any changes to the car that would justify the change in behavior: “We didn’t change the car, we didn’t add any aerodynamic balance, which is the kind of thing that could explain it. So, we are doing a deep investigation into the data to get to the bottom of the matter, because it is important to resolve this kind of thing before the next race,” he added.
In the final part of the race, Antonelli had to defend against Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, while also closing in on Russell. As the two Mercedes drivers were on different strategies, Russell was instructed by the team to allow his teammate to pass, helping Antonelli secure second place and extend his championship lead.
For Shovlin, Mercedes also faces an increasingly tight performance battle and is still awaiting a major upgrade. Antonelli will have an additional difficulty in Italy, as the team confirmed that he will serve a grid penalty for changing the power unit, following reliability issues faced earlier in the season.
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