Mercedes “forward of the place we’d hoped to be” on mileage after first two days

Mercedes “forward of the place we’d hoped to be” on mileage after first two days | Components 1

January 29, 2026

in Racing

Reading Time: 3 mins read

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Mercedes say they accomplished extra laps than they anticipated to over their first two days of operating on this week’s take a look at.

The staff ran its new W17 on Monday and Wednesday on the Circuit de Catalunya. Groups are allowed to run on not more than three of the primary 5 days and Mercedes selected to stay of their storage when rain fell on Tuesday.

After finishing their second day of operating on Wednesday, Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin stated “on mileage we’re a bit forward of the place we’d hoped to be, in order that’s good.”

Mercedes beforehand accomplished a shakedown take a look at with their automobile at Silverstone final week. Shovlin stated they had been happy by the shortage of issues they’d encountered with the brand new chassis and energy unit.

“You usually count on to have a number of teething issues, the odd reliability factor that prices you monitor time,” stated Shovlin. “As we speak the automobile labored faultlessly.

“We’re really shedding extra monitor time from different folks breaking down and inflicting pink flags than for something on our aspect, in order that’s good.

“By way of knowledge gathered, we’re getting there, however as all {the electrical} programs are new there’s nonetheless fairly a number of points that we’re bottoming out with, gathering the information and ensuring every thing’s as correct as we usually have it. However we had an extended checklist of goals and if something we’re barely forward of the place we anticipated to be on day two.”

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Drivers George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli accomplished 334 laps over the primary two days, equal to 5 grand prix distances across the Spanish monitor. Shovlin stated they’ve given good suggestions about how the W17 handles.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes, Circuit de Catalunya, 2026 — Antonelli and Russell are “pleased with the automobile”

“They’re pleased with the automobile,” stated Shovlin. “It’s a nicer factor to drive than the earlier rules. It’s a bit lighter, it turns fairly properly for them. We’ve obtained an honest steadiness at high and low velocity.

“However finally whether or not they’re joyful or not will come right down to whether or not they’re fast or not. I feel we’ll begin to see what folks can do possibly on that last day however realistically that work’s going to push into Bahrain.”

Mercedes will full its third and last day of operating on this week’s take a look at right this moment. “On the ultimate day we’re going to get caught right into a little bit of set-up work, attempting to simply discover what we are able to do with the instruments out there, try to get the automobile dialled in a bit higher, engaged on the softer vary of the tyres,” stated Shovlin. “We’ll do a little bit of that with each [drivers].

“That’ll then give us a load of data to take again to analyse forward of Bahrain. We will do extra work with the race drivers on the simulator ensuring that correlates effectively but when [Thursday] goes in addition to [Wednesday] did and the primary day it’ll have been an excellent take a look at.”