![](\"https:\/\/www.grandprix.com\/display\/photo?photo_caption=Kimi+Antonelli%2C+British+GP+2026&photo_copyright=%C2%A9+Mercedes&photo_url=https%3A%2F%2Fphotos.grandprix.com%2Fjpeg%2Fraces%2Fpbri26%2Fsun%2Fmer%2Fantonelli5-lg.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nKimi Antonelli, British GP 2026
\u00a9 Mercedes<\/p>\n
Antonelli appeared to be mounting a serious challenge to eventual winner Charles Leclerc before running over a kerb and suffering pace-destroying damage.<\/p>\n
Wolff, however, insisted the Italian youngster was not to blame. The fact is – this part shouldn’t break.<\/p>\n
The problem follows Mercedes’ recent battery reliability problems and came as Ferrari underlined its resurgence with another victory.<\/p>\n
You can’t win a world championship with three retirements, Wolff admitted.<\/p>\n
Without a doubt, everything is still to play for in the championship.<\/p>\n
Antonelli’s misfortune allowed teammate George Russell to reduce the gap between the pair to 25 points, although the Briton said the standings accurately reflect their performances so far.<\/p>\n
Based on my performances and based on his performances over the course of these nine races, I think probably a 25-point gap is in his favour, is probably correct, Russell said.<\/p>\n
“He has done a better job than me this year to this point, so he deserves to be ahead of me.<\/p>\n
Whether it should be 25 points, whether it should be 10 points, whether it should be 35 points is a debate, but in that ballpark between 10 and 30 points behind is probably about fair.<\/p>\n
Russell also admitted Mercedes still lacks the pace to sustain a championship challenge.<\/p>\n
If I’m honest, I’m not going to compete for the championship if the performance stays that way. So I’m not satisfied with this weekend.<\/p>\n
Antonelli was philosophical despite putting his recent five-race winning streak firmly now in the past.<\/p>\n
“We had an incredible run with five consecutive wins and I think everything was going too well for me.<\/p>\n
“I was going for the win here and I think we had a real chance of winning it. I was within striking distance of him, it’s a shame I couldn’t even try.<\/p>\n
The important thing is to come back stronger.<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old also insisted he would not change his approach despite the setback.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to race thinking about the championship. I was 66 points ahead three races ago and now I’m 25.<\/p>\n
I’ve had two retirements, I’ve lost a lot of points, and that’s why I need to race freely, without worrying about anything else.<\/p>\n
(GMM)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JULY 6, 2026 Mercedes boss Toto Wolff admits the team’s growing reliability concerns are becoming a threat to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[944,855,884,911,898,64,63,839,840,892,936,937,922,864,868,843,512,874,906,897,817,836,904,848,845,826,837,813,835,816,867,876,894,841,842,833,908,887,860,909,930,914,939,886,934,832,834,858,941,875,861,850,870,854,900,866,846,880,943,889,878,823,881,863,933,935,910,859,913,844,923,927,896,926,883,938,932,806,805,824,803,804,901,871,852,849,888,872,891,915,822,838,918,916,857,879,893,869,931,885,924,847,882,851,865,925,928,942,929,85,920,921,902,862,919,917,873,940,905,912,895,853,856,877,819,903,899,907,890],"class_list":["post-783468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-adrian-sutil","tag-albers","tag-alesi","tag-ammermuller","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-autoracing","tag-autos","tag-badoer","tag-bahrain","tag-barcelona","tag-benetton","tag-bruno-senna","tag-button","tag-cars","tag-china","tag-david-coulthard","tag-davidson","tag-doornbos","tag-f1","tag-f1-racing","tag-fauzy","tag-felipe-massa","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-ferrari","tag-fia","tag-formula-1","tag-formula-one","tag-formula1","tag-giancarlo-fisichella","tag-gilles-villeneuve","tag-glock","tag-grand-prix","tag-grandprix","tag-grandprix-com","tag-hakkinen","tag-hamilton","tag-heikki-kovalainen","tag-hill","tag-hockenheim","tag-honda","tag-hungary","tag-ide","tag-indianapolis","tag-inside-f1","tag-insidef1-com","tag-jaime-alguesuari","tag-japan","tag-jaques-villeneuve","tag-jarno-trulli","tag-jenson-button","tag-juan-pablo-montoya","tag-kamui-kobayashi","tag-karthikeyan","tag-karun-chandhok","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-klien","tag-korea","tag-kovalainen","tag-kubica","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-liuzzi","tag-lucas-di-grassi","tag-magny-cours","tag-malaysia","tag-mansell","tag-mark-webber","tag-mclaren","tag-michael-schumacher","tag-minardi","tag-monaco","tag-montagny","tag-monte-carlo","tag-monteiro","tag-montreal","tag-monza","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-nakajima","tag-nick-heidfeld","tag-nico-hulkenberg","tag-nico-rosberg","tag-paffett","tag-pedro-de-la-rosa","tag-piquet","tag-prost","tag-racing","tag-racingcars","tag-red-bull","tag-renault","tag-robert-kubica","tag-rosberg","tag-rossiter","tag-rubens-barrichello","tag-san-marino","tag-sato","tag-sauber","tag-schumacher","tag-scott-speed","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-sebastien-buemi","tag-senna","tag-silverstone","tag-singapore","tag-spa","tag-sports","tag-spyker","tag-super-aguri","tag-sutil","tag-timo-glock","tag-toro-rosso","tag-toyota","tag-trulli","tag-turkey","tag-valles","tag-verstappen","tag-vettel","tag-vitaly-petrov","tag-vitantonio-liuzzi","tag-webber","tag-williams","tag-winkelhock","tag-wurz","tag-yamamoto","tag-zonta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}