F1 News: Mercedes explain the failure causing a major title headache for Kimi Antonelli

Antonelli with his eyes shut and arms crossed on FIA press conference sofa at British GP — Photo: © IMAGO

Mercedes F1

Mercedes explain the failure which is giving Kimi Antonelli an F1 title headache

Antonelli cannot afford another race like Silverstone

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Thursday 9 July 2026 13:58 Updated: 16:20

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Mercedes have explained what caused the devastating failure on Kimi Antonelli's car at the British Grand Prix.

The Italian teenager came away from the ninth round of the 2026 campaign with a mixed bag of results, enjoying podium glory after winning the sprint race on Saturday before suffering a disastrous P16 finish on Sunday.

On lap 41 of the 52-lap race, Antonelli could be heard relaying the distressed message over team radio that something had broken on his car.

Article continues under video

The 19-year-old, who was running in P2 at the time had to come into the pits not once but twice to attempt to fix the issue, dropping down to P10 in the order as a result. But his bad luck did not end there.

Soon after, the FIA stewards announced that Antonelli had been slapped with a five-second penalty for track limits, a controversial decision given the issues with his car at the time.

Having finished the English round in P16, Antonelli was then bumped up to P15 thanks to a post-race penalty for Carlos Sainz, but that won't change anything where his championship chances are concerned.

As Antonelli fell down the order on Sunday his team-mate and title rival George Russell benefitted, taking P2 and the 18 points which came with it.

Antonelli may still be leading the championship, but he failed to add to his points tally in the main event and now suffers the major headache of Russell cutting the gap to just 25 points.

Mercedes confirm cause of latest F1 reliability issue

As Antonelli prepares to bid for redemption in Belgium next weekend (Sunday July 19), Mercedes have now confirmed the cause of their latest reliability issue.

Deputy Technical Director Simone Resta provided the detail in a race debrief video posted to the F1 team’s official Instagram page.

He said: “A lot of you are asking for information about what happened to Kimi’s car in the race.

“It was simply a front brake duct failure of a part of the brake duct that is called the wheel shield. And essentially, 10 laps to the end, we had a failure, and the component got loose and started to interact quite a lot with the suspension behaviour and the steering of the car.

“The car became very, very lazy and almost undriveable."

Resta, who previously worked for Haas and Ferrari, then highlighted just how well the Silver Arrows' championship leader had done to grapple with the car under such conditions, adding: "Kimi was really, really resilient. He wanted to keep the car on track and give himself the best chance to score points. Now, the car, as I said, was very undriveable, and that’s why Kimi went off track a few times.

“Unfortunately, that cost him a five-second penalty at the end of the race. Very unfortunate on that component, but another strong sign of performance and resilience from our young driver.”

F1 Mercedes George Russell Kimi Antonelli Silverstone British Grand Prix