Mercedes has confirmed the cause of the failure that ended victory hopes for Kimi Antonelli at the Formula 1 British Grand Prix.
Antonelli had recovered from a poor start at the British GP to begin closing down Charles Leclerc for victory as the race entered the closing stages.
But the young Italian took to the radio complaining of an issue, Mercedes pitting him for new tyres and a new front wing in an attempt to rectify the issue.
Antonelli’s race engineer Pete Bonnington attempted to calm him by stipulating that the wheel shield had failed, requesting he box to retire his car.
Instead, Antonelli continued, rapidly falling down the top ten, until only a single point was on offer. This then evaporated thanks to a time penalty awarded for track limits violations, Antonelli finishing 15th.
The dramatic collapse robbed both driver and team of a result that had looked increasingly likely as Antonelli closed the gap to Leclerc lap by lap, with the rookie appearing to have the pace to challenge for a maiden Grand Prix victory before the mechanical gremlins intervened.
Instead, what should have been a career-defining afternoon ended in confusion and frustration, with Antonelli’s insistence on continuing ultimately costing him any reward for an otherwise strong performance.
Mercedes Deputy Technical Director Simone Resta has now confirmed the source of the woes that ended Antonelli’s victory hopes.
“A lot of you are asking for information about what happened to Kimi’s car in the race,” he said in a video released by Mercedes.
“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.
Mercedes praise “resilient” Kimi Antonelli
Resta then revealed the scale of the challenge facing Antonelli behind the wheel, praising his resilience to continue despite managing a difficult situation.
“The car became very, very lazy and almost undriveable. But 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.”
Resta’s comments will offer some consolation to Antonelli after a result that ultimately yielded nothing in the championship standings, with Mercedes keen to highlight the character shown by their rookie in continuing to push despite driving what had effectively become a compromised car.
The team will now turn their attention to understanding the root cause of the brake duct failure, with reliability concerns unlikely to be welcomed as the sport heads into a demanding run of races before the summer break.
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