‘A car should not break’ – Wolff laments Antonelli mechanical issue with Italian denied ‘epic battle’ for Silverstone win

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff believes Kimi Antonelli could have fought Charles Leclerc in an "epic battle" to end the British Grand Prix had he not suffered an unexpected issue that derailed his race.

Having started the race on pole, backing up an impressive Sprint victory on Saturday, Antonelli looked in prime position to succeed once again around the Silverstone circuit as he looked to strengthen his position at the top of the Drivers' Championship standings.

However, the young Italian lost the lead at the start as both Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton surged past. While Antonelli later caught and overtook Hamilton 11 laps later, Leclerc had built up a healthy lead at the front.

As a result, Antonelli extended his first stint on the medium tyres and, by the time he dived into the pit lane for fresh hard tyres, he came back out 7.5s in arrears to Leclerc, but with much fresher rubber.

After making significant gains on the Ferrari man, misfortune then struck as all his hard work came undone when a front-left wheel shield failure hampered his progress and left him fighting to turn the car.

In the end, he was forced to pit twice while Mercedes attempted to rectify the issue, and to compound matters he was handed a five-second time penalty for track limits violations due to his multiple excursions fighting the problem. Instead a promising day ended with the Italian outside of the points and down in P15.

Reflecting on Antonelli's luck, Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff insisted that without the mechanical issue Antonelli could have caught eventual winner Leclerc and challenged for British Grand Prix victory.

"He went out and he was almost two seconds faster for certain laps and would have caught Charles five, six laps to the end and would have seen an epic battle for the win," he told Sky Sports F1.

"You never know in motor racing. But we had more than a handful of laps left with a second and a half in more performance. So in any case, it would have been great to watch these two drivers, Ferrari against the Italian and the Mercedes, battle it out."

Instead, the Mercedes team will now debrief what exactly happened to the wheel shield in an effort to ensure it doesn't happen again in future.

"We think it happened on Turn 9 because that's when it first appeared," Wolff explained. "But, you know, it's on us. A car should not break and I don't think the ride was worse than any laps before. He couldn't turn it anymore.

"First it was blocked by a carbon part and then at the end when it was gone... we haven't really done the postmortem yet on what happened. It's just a theory that we have at the moment."

As a result, Antonelli leaves Silverstone with a slimmed down 25-point lead over team mate George Russell, with his title rival finishing his home race in second. It was also the second non-score of the Italian's season, with a potential P2 finish in Barcelona lost late in the race due to another car issue.

Asked by F1 TV how Antonelli will look to bounce back from the disappointment, Wolff said: "It's difficult to know. That would have been an epic end of the race.

"We would have caught Charles six laps to the end with a huge tyre offset. But, you know, it's a mechanical sport. These things can happen."