Kimi Antonelli can win races in 2026 with the sort of inevitability that makes the rest of the grid look like it’s playing catch-up. What he can’t do — at least so far — is start them cleanly.
It’s become the nagging footnote to an otherwise authoritative opening to his Mercedes career: every single start this season has cost him track position. Melbourne set the tone when he tumbled from second to seventh on the opening lap. China and Miami were less dramatic but arguably more painful, both times slipping from pole to second. Japan was the real alarm bell: first to sixth before the race had properly settled.
Mercedes’ pace has repeatedly bailed him out — three wins on the bounce underlining that — but the team knows the margins only go one way as rivals close in. There’s no championship cushion big enough to justify giving away places for free.
So in Montreal, Mercedes has arrived with something that sounds almost trivial, but could be telling: a new clutch paddle on Antonelli’s side of the cockpit, with a different shape intended to help him be more consistent at the critical moment the lights go out.
“This weekend we’re bringing a lot of new things in the car,” Antonelli said on Thursday ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix. “And definitely there’s a few bits about the starts.
“We have a new paddle on my side, just different shape, just to help me to be a bit more consistent with the drops, and of course, the team has been working very hard on the software side as well and on the clutch side, just to try and find more performance, and also made the system a bit more robust.”
That last line is the one that’ll interest the paddock. When a driver talks about “robustness” in starts, it’s usually a quiet admission that the window has been too narrow — that the system has been a bit too sensitive to small variations in bite point, hand movement, or how quickly the clutch is released. Changing the paddle shape is the most visible part of a fix that’s clearly deeper than ergonomics.
Antonelli also made a pointed comparison that Mercedes won’t have missed.
“For sure there’s been a lot of work going on, because for example, McLaren, they have the same PU as us, and they’re starting very well,” he said. “So there’s definitely something that we’re missing, but this weekend we are bringing a lot of changes, and we’ll see already from tomorrow if it’s going to be better or not.”
It’s a neat way of framing it: same power unit, different outcomes. That steers the conversation away from hardware and towards integration — the relationship between clutch feel, control software, and how confidently a driver can repeat the same release under pressure. It also underlines why Mercedes is treating this like a proper development item rather than a “driver needs more practice” narrative.
The timing matters, too. Montreal’s a place where you don’t want to hand out invitations at the start; the opening lap is usually frantic, and the first chicane is the kind of pinch point that punishes hesitation. And with the season beginning to take shape, Antonelli’s lead looks healthy on paper but not unassailable.
He heads into the Canadian Grand Prix 20 points clear of team-mate George Russell, with Charles Leclerc third, a further 21 points back from Russell. That’s enough to breathe, not enough to coast — especially if Russell gets even a sniff of being the more dependable Sunday operator inside the same garage.
Antonelli, for his part, sounded energised by the circuit and by the character of this year’s cars, expecting Montreal to play to the chassis traits the field’s been talking about all season.
“This track usually offers decent racing,” he said. “Obviously this year, the racing has seen a lot more overtakes, a lot more action. So, I think it can be the same here.
“Of course, it might not be as easy as, for example, Miami, because Miami is a bit wider, you have a bit more opportunity to make moves, but I think still it’s going to offer a lot of good action.”
And then the bit drivers always give away when they’re genuinely looking forward to a lap: how the car behaves when you throw it around.
“I think driving the car around here… you have a lot of change of direction, not a lot of high-speed corners,” he said. “So, with the characteristic of this year’s car, I think it’s going to be more fun to drive, because the car is more lighter, it’s more agile, so it’s going to be much more reactive as well in the change of direction.”
If the new paddle and the supporting changes do what Mercedes hopes, Antonelli’s weekends might start to look less like a minor rescue mission and more like the kind of controlled execution that turns a quick driver into a champion. Because right now, his first laps are giving rivals their best chance to hurt him — and in a season where he’s already the one everyone’s measuring themselves against, Mercedes will be keen to shut that door before it becomes habit.
