Kimi Antonelli pledges Mercedes investigation over F1 'weak point'

Kimi Antonelli has identified his F1 starts as a "weak point" and pledged an investigation into his bad getaways. 

Across the three standing starts held thus far in 2026, in the two grands prix and the China Sprint, Antonelli has lost position every time from his second, second, and first place starts, and picked up a time penalty in the Sprint for colliding with Isack Hadjar in the midfield. 

In the Chinese race, where he became the second youngest driver to win a grand prix, Antonelli was jumped off the line by the fast-starting Lewis Hamilton from third place, with the small Ferrari turbo once again propelling Hamilton to a super-fast getaway. 

The Briton led the first lap of the grand prix before Antonelli took back the lead he would never lose to record his first win, with a hat-trick of pole, win, and fastest lap, only being denied a grand chelem by Hamilton leading the first lap.

Reflecting, the Mercedes driver believes he needs to "review" his starts to ensure he limits losing positions off the line.

"The start is still our weak point, and to be fair, I didn’t go with great confidence because my two previous starts were really bad, so I didn’t know what to expect," Antonelli told media, including RacingNews365, of his China launch. 

"But obviously, I covered a little bit too much on the inside and left too much space on the outside, so I probably need to review that. 

"But the pace was still good, especially since I felt good on the hards, even though at the end I relaxed a bit too much and made a mistake, which put a bit of pressure.

"There’s so much that I’ve learned, but first of all, it’s never to relax too much because it went well, but it could have been worse, so just always try to stay on point and keep the focus because at the end, I opened the room for mistakes and the mistake happened.

"I just need to make sure it doesn’t happen again, and then of course also just trying to focus on doing things right, procedure-wise, warm-up, bringing the tyre into the stint. 

"I think it was a massive lesson, also it was very cold, and it was a good lesson to see what the best way was to keep the tyres in a good window."