F1 leader Kimi Antonelli starts at the back. Most such leaders made the podium.
Kimi Antonelli takes a new power unit and starts at the back at Monza on 6 September. Lando Norris won a second race in a row at Zandvoort a week ago.
What happened
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli will take a full new power unit and start the Italian Grand Prix towards the back of the grid, Mercedes confirmed, with Toto Wolff saying the team’s calculations made Monza the best track to take the penalty; Antonelli is 59 points clear in the standings.
Kimi Antonelli starts near the back on Sunday . Mercedes confirmed that he will take a complete new engine, called a power unit in F1, at his home race at Monza. He arrives 59 points clear in the championship in his second season.
Toto Wolff said in Zandvoort that the team’s calculations made Monza the best track to take the penalty. He said the decision was about the championship and not about public relations.
McLaren are in better form. Lando Norris won the Dutch Grand Prix on , his second win in a row, ahead of Antonelli and George Russell. The race was stopped early on after Max Verstappen crashed.
A leader starting at the back is rare but has happened before. Since 2016 the driver at the top of the standings has taken a grid penalty for new engine or gearbox parts seven times. The first was Hamilton’s 55-place penalty at Spa in 2016, and the latest was Verstappen’s 10-place penalty at the same track in 2024.
Sources: Formula 1, FIA, BBC, Sky Sports
The Pattern
We looked at every race since 2016 where the championship leader started with a grid penalty for new engine or gearbox parts, and at where he finished. There were seven, and in five of them the leader fought back into the top three. Results come from BBC Sport’s race reports.
Show the other 5 cases
The Read
History points to a podium more than a win. Leaders who take these penalties usually lead because they have the fastest car, and in five of the seven races the car carried them back into the top three. Only Verstappen, at his peak, turned a penalty into a win. The win market starts low because Ferrari and McLaren were expected to be the fastest cars at Monza.
The warning is the two misses. In both, the leader started 11th and found the cars in the middle of the field harder to pass than the models said, at Spa in 2024 and in Turkey in 2021. Antonelli will start behind more cars than either of them.
A crash on the first lap, or a safety car at the wrong moment, could trap him behind slower cars and end the podium hopes. The Mercedes market also depends on George Russell, who starts wherever his car qualifies.
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