Antonelli 'empty' after winning run comes to an end

BARCELONA, June 14 : Formula One leader Kimi Antonelli said he was left with an empty feeling after his five-race winning streak came to an end at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix on Sunday.

The 19-year-old Italian, the sport's youngest ever championship leader, retired four laps from the finish after his Mercedes suffered an electrical shutdown while in second place.

The failure allowed Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, the race winner, to slash Antonelli's lead from 66 to 41 points after seven of 22 rounds.

"I didn't see it coming," said the teenager. "All of a sudden... the car gave up.

"Of course, I feel very empty emotionally right now, because we're trying to soak in what has just happened."

Team boss Toto Wolff said he was 'underwhelmed" by Mercedes's second such retirement in the last three races, with George Russell sidelined while leading in Canada last month.

"We can't DNF (suffer retirements) in a kind of regular, continued way, losing 25 points in the constructors' championship in Montreal and losing another 18 points today," said the Austrian.

"Reliability, this is what we need to get on top of. And that's number one. So nobody is happy about that. And we will leave no stone unturned to understand (what happened)."

Russell, who had failed to score in his previous two races, recognised he had benefited from his teammate's misfortune by taking second place on Sunday but also expressed concern.

"It’s a shame to see how the race ended for him and obviously for us as a team and as HPP (Mercedes' High Performance Powertrains). We’ve had a few failures recently, so that’s a big concern for us."

Hamilton's win was the first defeat of the season for Mercedes.