Kimi Antonelli shares 'open-minded' Mercedes desire in F1-title crunch time

Kimi Antonelli would like to see Mercedes approach the United States Grand Prix with an open mind about set-up direction as the team continues to unlock the potential of its recent upgrade package.

Antonelli is on the cusp of his first F1 drivers' championship at just 20 years of age, and with five or six rounds of the campaign to go, he leads team-mate George Russell by 102 points in the standings.

Mercedes introduced a far-ranging upgrade package to the W17 at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia, but the Brackley-based squad struggled to extract the expected level of performance from it.

It led the eight-time constructors' champion to conduct an A/B test at the Singapore Grand Prix, with Russell reverting to the previous specification car, which carried him to victory in the first round of that triple-header, in Baku.

Antonelli, who stayed with the updated package at the Marina Bay Street Circuit, explained the difficulties he experienced.

"The window is very small at the moment where the car operates and is very sensitive to the way you drive it, the way you take a corner, the way you brake," the eight-time grand prix winner told media, including RacingNews365. "So it reacts very differently.

"So hopefully now — in Austin, we have three free practices — we can be very open-minded with set-up, and hopefully we can find a way, and we can use the full potential of the package and finally see the gains."

High praise for an 'incredible job' by Mercedes

However, the Italian driver also expressed his confidence in the revised W17, despite the thin margins when it comes to optimising the set-up.

"But I think the team did an incredible job on just putting the car in a better place and allowing me to get the confidence.

"And now it's a starting point to keep working and keep extracting the potential."