Mercedes, the first cracks emerge in the W17: suspension problems for Antonelli

Step back Mercedes had emerged giving the feeling of being the team to beat at the end of the first shakedowns of the season in Barcelona. Furthermore, all the rumors linked to the now infamous compression ratio of the Brixworth power unit made the two silver arrows appear as the reference single-seaters in this dawn of the new regulatory era of Formula 1. Today, however, on the Sakhir track, in Bahrain, we witnessed a different reality: the W17s in fact showed balance problems – with Russell, in the morning – and reliability, with Antonelli in the afternoon session. Antonelli and Russell’s concern “It was nice to be back on track after the shakedown in Barcelona, but unfortunately a suspension problem interrupted our program this afternoon – explained the Italian driver himself at the end of the day – thus limiting my time on track. We lost almost two hours of testing and this slowed down our programme. The team did a great job solving the problem as quickly as possible and we managed to complete 30 laps before the end of the day. It wasn’t an ideal start to this first test, so we’re looking forward to it to get back on track tomorrow. Many of our competitors seemed very strong today, so we need to make up ground. Our goal is to have a calmer day tomorrow and to deepen our knowledge of the W17.” Even George Russell, who completed 56 laps in the morning session, setting the sixth fastest time of the day, appeared far from satisfied with this day-1: “We had a difficult first day. We had three positive days on track in Barcelona, ​​but here in the Middle East we didn’t get off to a good start. This morning we tested the general balance of the car, but it didn’t seem as responsive as in Spain. This is partly due to the higher track temperatures, but we still have some work to do to fine-tune the W17. Unfortunately, this afternoon we lost many laps due to a suspension problem which forced Kimi to stay in the pits for a few hours. Our rivals, in particular Red Bull and McLaren, impressed once again, as they did in Barcelona. It is clear that we have some ground to make up and we are already working hard to do so.”