Toto Wolff issues Mercedes blame for 'unacceptable' problem hampering Kimi Antonelli's title chances

Mercedes

Toto Wolff issues Mercedes blame for 'unacceptable' problem hampering Antonelli's title chances

Mercedes must solve this issue

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Wednesday 13 May 2026 18:57 Updated: 21:13

F1 boss Toto Wolff is not impressed with one aspect of Mercedes' performance in 2026, one which could hamper both Kimi Antonelli and George Russell in the title fight.

Mercedes have won all four of the opening grands prix of the 2026 season, with Antonelli in particular impressing with three wins and a championship lead of 20 points over team-mate Russell.

Yet, there's one glaring weakness in the Mercedes team this year, which is their race starts.

Article continues under video

Antonelli lost six places at the start of the sprint race in Miami and two in the grand prix, put down to an issue with the car rather than the driver.

Speaking to Sky Sports Germany after the Miami Grand Prix, team principal Wolff vowed to remedy the situation and deemed it 'unacceptable' for a team fighting for the title.

"Not good at all. That’s unacceptable if you want to win a world championship. You have to get off to a good start. It’s entirely down to the team, not the driver," he said.

"Both of them lose. That’s unacceptable. We have to get this under control. We’ve watched this for far too long."

Why are Mercedes struggling on the race starts?

Mercedes poor starts in Australia, China, Japan and Miami were not all down to the same issue, with the team rather than Antonelli blamed during round four.

It is suspected that Mercedes set a far too ambitious clutch release target for the start of the sprint in Miami, inaccurately predicting the level of grip and resulting in wheelspin for Antonelli's car.

Speaking to Sky Sports in Miami, Antonelli explained: "We've been doing work over the break and on my side for once I did everything right with the procedures, so we need to check what happened.

"The grip was very low, probably lower than we expected and then after that I was really frustrated, I didn't even drive well, I did a lot of mistakes.

“I got track limits which is something that I need to avoid, but this weekend definitely has been more difficult, but was expected with everyone bringing big upgrades."

Antonelli suffered a similar wheelspin issue in Japan, although this was admittedly through driver error, where he said to Channel 4: "It was a really stupid thing, little thing. I didn’t insert well enough the fingers into the clutch, and that led to the fact that when I dropped it, I didn’t have the same angle as well, and I just dropped more than what I should have.

"It’s an area where I need to work a lot, because it’s definitely not good enough and I’m just making my life a lot harder. So, definitely a lot of work to do still."

F1 Mercedes George Russell Toto Wolff Kimi Antonelli