Antonelli also hit trouble: Finished Mexican GP with a cracked oil sump

Mercedes has been battling technical problems since the start of the season. Most have affected George Russell, but Kimi Antonelli has not escaped them either. According to Mercedes deputy team principal Bradley Lord, Antonelli came close to retiring from the weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix with a cracked sump.

The championship celebrations went perfectly. Kimi Antonelli made it onto the podium, meaning the organisers did not have to use their contingency plan and adapt the podium ceremony to accommodate four drivers. But the celebrations came close to having a bitter aftertaste.

“We got the car back after the race, took the floor off the bottom, [and found it was] covered in oil,” Bradley Lord revealed on the High Performance podcast. “Sump cracked. Kimi said he thinks about four laps from the end he could start to feel the engine just starting to struggle. So [he was] right on the edge of retirement [from] that race and yet it held together.”

Antonelli ultimately held on to a good result. George Russell was not so fortunate. After a strong start, his power unit began losing so much power that he emerged from the opening sequence of corners in sixth place.

“He’s taken the lion’s share of these technical problems and quirks and we had another one on Sunday,” Lord acknowledged. “He was in prime position for going for the lead into turn one and then [has] a de-rate out of nowhere.”

Mercedes did not explain exactly how it happened. “Because of one of the complex bits of the energy rules mean he’s back in P5, P6 and caught up in the [mess] with Hadjar. It was a little bit like Spa, the start of the race there where he was so well positioned and then it just became that collision at turn four,” the 46-year-old Englishman added.