While the first three races of the 2026 Formula 1 season have been a walk in the park for Mercedes, Kimi Antonelli claims his team may need to fight a bit harder in Miami this weekend.

Mercedes turned up to the 2026 season with the best package, with their W17 clearly the best interpretation of the new rules, and duly went on to win the first three races in Australia, China, and Japan. George Russell won the first race down under, while Antonelli won the other two.

But that means Mercedes are now walking around with a target on their back as the likes of Ferrari, McLaren, and somehow Red Bull are trying to claw back the gap and have been busy over the April break—caused by the cancellation of F1 races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia due to the Middle East war—trying to improve and fast-track car upgrades.

Asked about his expectations in Miami, Antonelli told the media: “Yes, it's very exciting to be back in a place where I got my first Sprint pole last year.

"Of course it's going to be different this year; again, different cars, so we'll see how that goes. It's going to be a very interesting weekend for us. We're not really bringing anything, to be fair, just very small things, whilst other teams are bringing big upgrades, such as Ferrari and McLaren. Also Red Bull, they're bringing an upgrade.

"So, let's see how we're going to do. For sure they're going to get closer, and we might have to fight quite a bit more this weekend. But yeah, we'll do our best; we're going to keep our head down.

"On my side I'm going to try to maximize the performance in the car and going to try to do my best, and then we'll see what the result will be," the Italian maintained.

Race starts an issue for Antonelli

One of the issues he pointed out that he needed to sort out was race starts. While Ferrari has had the best starting car with their smaller turbo design, meaning they have more boost while launching, Mercedes have struggled to match that, with Antonelli suffering more than Russell in that regard.

The FIA has introduced tweaks to the starting procedure to avoid cars bogging down on the start line, but Antonelli revealed his problem is something else.

He explained: “Well, I think my issue is more fundamental, so I think it's not that this tweak is going to help me massively.

"We have been doing some practice starts, of course, in the break. We've been working with the team to try and recognize what's the issue and we seem to have found it. Now we're trying to obviously think about a solution as soon as possible, and then obviously we know where to work on for the solution.

"So, it's not going to be that straightforward because it needs a change on the clutch paddle and a little bit on hand positioning as well, so definitely it's not going to be as straightforward. But we are doing our best to find that solution as soon as possible in order to be able to do decent starts. But definitely we recognized that my issue was much more fundamental.

"Now we'll see in Miami if we can do a step forward, and then obviously we have another break after Miami, so more time to work on and to find that solution," the 2026 F1 Championship leader concluded.