{"id":255647,"date":"2026-05-02T17:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T17:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/255647\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T17:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T17:47:11","slug":"kimi-antonelli-not-at-fault-for-poor-f1-miami-gp-sprint-race-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/255647\/","title":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli not at fault for poor F1 Miami GP sprint race start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mercedes<\/a> boss Toto Wolff has relieved any responsibility from Kimi Antonelli after yet another poor race start for the Formula 1 championship leader during the Miami Grand Prix sprint.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes driver dropped from second to fourth on lap one, meaning he\u2019s now lost 20 positions at race start across the opening three grands prix and two sprints of 2026.<\/p>\n

Antonelli ultimately crossed the Miami finish line in fourth, but dropped to sixth post-race following a five-second track limits penalty, handing fourth to team-mate George Russell<\/a> and fifth to Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

It marked the first time Mercedes has failed to win this year after it didn\u2019t bring many updates to Miami, compared to heavily upgraded cars for\u00a0McLaren<\/a> and Ferrari<\/a> who made up the podium.<\/p>\n

Wolff told Sky Sports: \u201cWe knew that we are a little bit out of sync with our upgrades that are coming from [the next round in] Montreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we were hoping that we’d be able to hold on now in terms of fewer lap times we do. But obviously if you have such a bad getaway, which wasn’t at all Kimi’s fault, it was a glitch on our side – it’s difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Andrea <\/p>\n

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The poor getaway came in spite of Antonelli really working hard during the April break to improve upon his lap one fortunes, which had threatened to plague his otherwise successful start to 2026 with victories in China and Japan.<\/p>\n

Antonelli told Sky Sports: \u201cWe’ve been doing work over the break and on my side for once I did everything right with the procedures, so we need to check what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe grip was very low, probably lower than we expected and then after that I was really frustrated, I didn’t even drive well, I did a lot of mistakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got track limits which is something that I need to avoid, but this weekend definitely has been more difficult, but was expected with everyone bringing big upgrades. We\u2019ve just got to try to\u00a0maximise the result and focus on qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 19-year-old now leads the championship by seven points over Russell with third-placed Charles\u00a0Leclerc<\/a> 20 off the top, after he completed the podium behind\u00a0McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris<\/a> and Oscar Piastri<\/a> in the sprint race.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has relieved any responsibility from Kimi Antonelli after yet another poor race start for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[110072,110073,31514,111165,22680,123,31515,125,124],"class_list":["post-255647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","tag-f1-miami-grand-prix-2026","tag-formula-1","tag-kimi-antonelli-not-at-fault-for-poor-f1-miami-gp-sprint-race-start-toto-wolff","tag-mercedes","tag-miami","tag-miami-gp","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}