Kimi Antonelli says he and Mercedes have reached ‘compromise’ over ‘fundamental’ start issue

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Kimi Antonelli has revealed that he and Mercedes have reached a ‘compromise’ over a ‘fundamental issue’ ahead of the Miami Grand Prix.

After a month-long break, the 2026 Formula 1 season will finally resume this weekend around the Miami International Autodrome.

Heading into the weekend, Mercedes young star Antonelli leads teammate George Russell by nine points in the world championship standings following his impressive victories in China and Japan. 

However, despite being in the lead of the championship, Antonelli has struggled with his race starts this season, often falling down the grid after lights out before managing to climb his way back up the field.

Kimi Antonelli says working on race starts has left him with ‘terrible pain’

Speaking recently to Italian news outlet La Gazzetta dello Sport, Antonelli revealed that he has been working on his race starts during the April break.

The young Italian admitted that his arm was in ‘terrible pain’ after doing more than a hundred practice launches.

Although Antonelli hinted that more changes will be made for the Canadian Grand Prix, a ‘compromise’ has been reached for this weekend’s race in Miami.

When asked how many times he has practised his race starts, Antonelli said: “A lot, I’d say, at least a hundred. My arm was in terrible pain from all the starts I’ve tried.

“It was also a matter of working with the team, because we made some changes to the clutch that I think we’ll use in Canada, and that will help me with my sprints.

“This weekend, however, we reached a compromise to manage it better and therefore get a decent start.”

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Kimi Antonelli says recent FIA changes will not help ‘fundamental issue’

In the latest rule changes, the starting procedure was altered, with the MGU-K now permitted to provide a boost of power for a car experiencing a bad launch, which has been described as ‘low power start detection’.

As reported by RacingNews365, Antonelli claimed that the FIA’s recent regulations tweaks will not help his race starts, something he labelled as a ‘fundamental issue’.

He said: “Well, I think my issue is more fundamental, so I think it’s not that this tweak is going to help me massively.

“We have been doing some practice starts, of course, during the break. We’ve been working with the team to try to recognise what the issue is, and we seem to have found it.

“Now we’re trying to obviously think about a solution as soon as possible, and then obviously we know where to work on for the solution.”