Take Monza pressure off Antonelli? Mercedes' grid penalty dilemma

The Formula 1 championship-leading Mercedes team is anticipating the need to take engine penalties with both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli in the upcoming second half of the season.

Mercedes is 72 points clear of Ferrari in the constructors' standings, and Antonelli has a 50-point buffer in the drivers' contest, but the Mercedes W17 had come under more pressure from rivals in more recent races - while earlier its bigger issue had simply been bringing its dominant package to the finish.

Antonelli is now on the cusp of a grid drop, which will come with his next introduction of an internal combustion engine and/or exhaust.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said he "still very much hopes we don't need to take" penalties, but the balance of probabilities is not on Mercedes' side. 

"There could be one [race] that can be very special for Kimi, but on paper looks like it's a good place to take an engine penalty," he admitted in reference to the Italian Grand Prix, with the Monza track layout particularly conducive to clearing slower traffic. 

"So we need to speak to Marco [Antonelli, Kimi's father] when we want to take an engine penalty in Monza. Baku is also one. 

"Yeah, maybe take the pressure off Monza, to start from the back."

Monza was the scene of Antonelli's F1 weekend debut in 2024, where he crashed out of his first flying lap of his maiden FP1 on home soil. He finished ninth at his first F1 race there in 2025.

Engine component use 'leaders' in 2026

ICE (4 allowed)
Isack Hadjar – 5
Kimi Antonelli, George Russell – 4
17 drivers – 3

TC (4 allowed)
Isack Hadjar – 5
Kimi Antonelli, George Russell and 17 other drivers – 3

EXH (4 allowed)
Isack Hadjar – 5
Kimi Antonelli – 4
George Russell and 9 other drivers – 3

ES (3 allowed)
Fernando Alonso – 5
Lance Stroll – 5
Isack Hadjar – 4
Kimi Antonelli, George Russell and 10 other drivers – 3

PU-CE (3 allowed)
Fernando Alonso – 5
Lance Stroll – 5
3 drivers – 4
Kimi Antonelli, George Russell and 9 other drivers – 3

MGU-K (3 allowed)
Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll – 4
8 drivers – 3
Kimi Antonelli, George Russell and 9 other drivers – 2

PU-ANC (6 allowed)
Fernando Alonso – 7
Kimi Antonelli, George Russell and 3 other drivers – 5

Russell, too, is not exactly sorted for the rest of the season - and deputy team principal Bradley Lord was firmer than Wolff in the expectation that penalties are coming for both cars.

"I think, looking at how many we've used in the first half of the season, it's almost inevitable that at some point there will be penalties to take," he conceded.

"Some of the strategy team and guys in Brixworth [Mercedes powertrain headquarters] will work to figure out what the optimum route is through the rest of the season. 

"It's realistically going to be hard to get to the end of the season on the existing hardware that we've got.

"We've got half a season to do. Kimi's on his fourth set of bits, so the next ones incur penalties, and George is on his third, in the first half of the year. 

"The probabilities and the maths would suggest that both at some point will need to take a form of penalty, size to be determined."

Mercedes said it switched Russell to his fourth internal combustion engine of the year in Hungary after the sump on his power unit was cracked in qualifying.

However, there is clearly confidence that, while Mercedes has struggled for reliability to start the season, issues that could cause a snowball of penalties have been contained.

"We had initially some challenges with the ERS, the pack that was closely related issues that were responsible for the failures in Canada and in Barcelona, that we believe are for the most part resolved with the reliability update we brought to Austria. 

"On the chassis side, it's been different things. The wheel shield in Silverstone [on Antonelli's car], other elements elsewhere. 

"Yeah, there have been a number of different elements for us to get on top of, but the most frequent one was the concern with the ERS pack, and we hope that's been... a lot of hard work went into the many, many fixes that were contained in that latest spec that we brought to Austria."