MOTORSPORT – Kimi Antonelli showcased Mercedes’s strong pace last night as he topped the times on the third and final day of the first three-day session in Formula One Aramco Pre-Season Testing 2026 at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.
The 19-year-old Italian led teammate George Russell in an impressive one-two on the day’s classification after taking over for the Briton for evening running, held under lights and in cool conditions.
Antonelli shrugged off two earlier days of limited testing during which he faced persistent reliability issues with his car. He made the most of his track time yesterday, setting the fastest lap of one minute 33.669 seconds – the quickest time of the opening three-day test in the kingdom.
“It’s been a difficult test for us as a team, particularly on my side,” said Antonelli after completing 61 laps last night.
“We have encountered several reliability issues that meant I only managed just over 30 laps across the first two days – it was therefore a good afternoon today where it was really my first time properly getting to grips with the car here in Bahrain.
“We were able to complete a good amount of single-lap work and then came close to finishing a race simulation.”
Antonelli expressed his optimism for the second three-day test at BIC next week from Wednesday to Friday, which will be the final opportunity for F1’s teams and star drivers to gather the all-important data they need to get their all-new 2026 cars ready for this year’s FIA F1 World Championship.
“Whilst this week has been frustrating, it is much better to have these issues now and be able to work through them, rather than them happening during race weekends,” Antonelli added.
“The team is already working through solutions to some of our problems and we can hopefully come back stronger next week.
“Several of our rivals have looked particularly good and have enjoyed much more trouble-free running here than us. We need to try and extract more from our package and hopefully can begin to make up some of our gap during the second and final pre-season test.”
Antonelli was classified 0.249 seconds quicker than Russell in their Mercedes F1 W17, with Russell completing 78 laps. Lewis Hamilton put Ferrari third on the timesheet after testing for the whole day in their SF-26, going 0.540s off the leader’s pace while logging 150 laps.
Oscar Piastri was in the MCL40 the full day for back-to-back F1 Constructors’ World Champions McLaren. He ranked fourth 0.880s behind, and was the day’s busiest driver with 161 laps.
The Red Bull Racing pair of Max Verstappen and Isack Hadjar followed in fifth and sixth, respectively, in their RB22. Verstappen was 1.672s from Antonelli after running in the morning and Hadjar was 1.941s back.
The top 10 was completed by Esteban Ocon (+2.084s) in Haas’s VF-26, Franco Colapinto (+2.137s) for Alpine who ran the whole day in their A526, Oliver Bearman (+2.303s) for Haas, and Nico Hulkenberg (+2.622s) in Audi’s R26.
The rest of the classification featured Alexander Albon (+2.996s) in Williams’s FW48, Liam Lawson (+3.139s) as Racing Bulls’s lone tester yesterday in their VCARB 03, Carlos Sainz (+3.517s) for Williams, Sergio Perez (+3.696s) in Cadillac’s CA01, Gabriel Bortoleto (+3.867s) for Audi, Lance Stroll (+4.496s) driving Aston Martin’s AMR26 the full day, and Valtteri Bottas (+5.103s) for Cadillac.
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