Montoya: “Mercedes could have lapped 3-4 seconds faster in Barcelona”

The W17 clocked up a lot of kilometers at Montmelò “In Bahrain we will have a more representative picture” said Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur at the end of the Barcelona Shakedown. In Catalonia the Ferrari SF26 was the fastest with Lewis Hamilton, but the seven-time world champion, George Russell, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc were enclosed in a handkerchief, about three tenths. Reliability was the priority for everyone at Montmelò and both Mercedes and Ferrari managed to clock up the kilometers without any particular problems. According to Juan Pablo Montoya, Mercedes has remained far from expressing its true potential. “From what I know, Mercedes could have gone 3-4 seconds faster if it had exploited its potential – said the former Colombian driver in the podcast dedicated to him by the Colombian version of the AS newspaper – the pole position in Barcelona will be in 1’12” when the GP takes place, while in the Shakedown they lapped in 1’16”. If Montoya’s predictions turned out to be true, the prediction according to which the cars 2026 will start the season with times about two and a half seconds slower than the times set in 2025. Like Mercedes, their opponents could also have an identical margin in their pocket to that of the Brackley team, but in any case Montoya underlined an important aspect regarding Mercedes’ presumed advantage over their opponents: “Mercedes supplies the engines to three other teams – added Montoya when asked whether 2026 could turn out to be a ‘replay’ of 2023 dominated by Red Bull – someone will guess, and someone will be wrong”.