Slow motion starts: in four starts Antonelli and Russell lost 21 positions

Domination at the beginning of the year The first three races of this season saw Mercedes as the only, great protagonist: while in Australia the Anglo-German company celebrated George Russell’s success, complete with a double for Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s 2nd place, the order of arrival was reversed in China, with the first career victory of the young driver from Bologna. In the last weekend in Japan, Antonelli achieved his second consecutive victory, with Russell in this case falling off the podium in fourth position. Placements that allow Mercedes to occupy the leadership of the world championship, but despite this there is a problem that the Brackley company will have to work on before returning to the track in Brackley. The negative starts Like other teams such as Audi, Mercedes particularly suffered from starts. Despite having monopolized the front row in all three GPs (including the Sprint in China), the two drivers encountered difficulties when turning on the green lights, losing a total of 21 positions. Difficulties that did not affect Ferrari, but not even a team like McLaren, which also has Mercedes power units. The Deputy Technical Director of the Brackley manufacturer, Simone Resta, admitted what was wrong: “We know that it is probably one of the weak points, if not the weakest, of our car at the moment – he explained in a video released by the team – we are working with the highest priority on this aspect to try to improve it in view of the next races. We know, for example, looking at McLaren’s start in Suzuka, that our power unit can start well. We will do our best to improve our performances in this area for Miami and we will try to defend as best we can whatever position we manage to gain in qualifying.” Despite the two victories, Antonelli was the one who suffered the most from Mercedes’ problem at the start, as demonstrated by the greater number of positions he lost compared to his teammate at the start. Andrea Kimi Antonelli GPDEPARTURE AFTER LAP 1ST POSITIONS LOSTAustralia2nd 7th5China (Sprint)2nd 6th4China1°2°1Japan1st 6th5 George Russell GPDEPARTURE AFTER LAP POSITIONS LOSTAustralia1st 2nd 1China (Sprint)1st 2nd 1China2nd 4th2Japan2nd 4th2