Antonelli: “The race distance has been covered, the program has been completed”

The W17 is solid After taking to the track on Monday, Mercedes chose today for its second of three Shakedown days in Barcelona. The W17 does not seem to cause any reliability problems, given that today it completed 850 kilometres, ending the day with a double on the timesheet, with Andrea Kimi Antonelli preceding George Russell by almost two tenths, the only drivers to go under 1’18 among the eight who went on track. Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s comment Antonelli (91 laps) commented on his second day of testing in Barcelona in the press release issued by Mercedes: “For me it was a better day than Monday, when the wet track in the morning limited my performance. This afternoon we managed to cover the entire race distance, increasing our mileage and collecting a lot of data for the team to work on. This car is completely new and very different from last year, so I’m getting more and more used to it with each lap that we complete. It’s constant learning both for me as a driver and for the team, so accumulating as many kilometers as possible is very useful.” Now the focus is on the final day, before flying to Bahrain: “We have completed our program on both days so far. This is the only real objective of this shakedown and we hope that our third and final day of testing goes smoothly. It could be tomorrow, if the weather looks to be dry; whatever conditions we face tomorrow or Friday, we are focused on increasing our mileage and putting ourselves in the best position possible before we leave for Bahrain.”