F1, Mercedes after the tests, Antonelli: “Ready to start strong”. Russell: “Satisfied”

At Mercedes, the bags are already packed: the pre-season tests at Montmelò for the team led by Toto Wolff concluded on Thursday evening, 24 hours ahead of the schedule of the five days available. The team has in fact chosen to focus its work on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, completing the three days available to each team with a total of 502 laps completed, 2,325 kilometers completed without any obvious problems to the newly created power unit. The program was completed by the drivers, our Italian Kimi Antonelli and the British George Russell, who completed an impressive 168 laps today alone, achieving the best performances (like yesterday too) and demonstrating reliability and good feedback on long runs on the track. In the last test in Barcelona the team concentrated on the use of the soft compound, with Kimi at the wheel in the morning for 90 laps (237 laps in total for him in three days) and Russell in the afternoon for 78 laps (265 total). The work done by the riders will be analyzed by the team upon their return to England, in Brackley and Brixworth, to continue the development work in view of the next tests in Bahrain and the subsequent seasonal debut in Melbourne.

Antonelli’s comment

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The team appeared very solid from the first laps and the response from the drivers could only be positive: “Overall they were a positive few days for us – said Kimi Antonelli – we had some problems, but it didn’t affect our program too much. Now I’m looking forward to having a few days to work with the team and assimilate everything we gathered in Barcelona and get back in the car in Bahrain for the first official test and continue the journey towards the start of the season. We will get there with a good understanding of the car and, hopefully, ready to start strong immediately.”

Russell’s words

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Briton George Russell is of the same opinion: “The car works well, but we know that it’s not just that it works that matters: it’s how fast it is. At the moment we have no indications in this sense, so we will have to wait for Bahrain to have a first picture of the relative values. It’s still very early, but we can be satisfied with the initial foundations we have laid. It’s an exciting moment for our sport, with one of the potentially most impactful regulation changes we’ve ever seen.” Some details on the work carried out finally came from Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director: “From a reliability point of view, it was a good week for us. The car allowed us to carry out the program exactly as we wanted on each of the three days, and that was what we hoped for coming into Barcelona. On the last day on the track we also made good progress on some of the critical issues that emerged on days one and two, and that is encouraging. That said, in Barcelona we focused almost exclusively on validating the W17. In Bahrain we will instead pass to explore the set-ups, which is not possible here in such low temperatures. This will give us a much clearer idea of the relative capabilities of the car as we get closer to the 2026 season.”