Mercedes Tops Barcelona Shakedown as Russell, Antonelli Lead

On Day 3 of the closed-door Barcelona shakedown, Mercedes logged heavy mileage and topped the unofficial timesheets. George Russell set the morning benchmark with a 1:17.580 and teammate Kimi Antonelli lowered that to 1:17.382 in the afternoon. Russell had completed about 92 laps by lunchtime and Antonelli roughly 91 in the afternoon — around 183 laps between them — and the team reported no major reliability issues with the W17.

The session emphasized mileage and system validation rather than a straight performance shootout. Mercedes focused on long runs and setup work while repeatedly producing the day’s best times; teams described the running as program-focused and treated the unofficial timings as indicative rather than definitive.

Six teams ran in drier Wednesday conditions. McLaren made the public debut of its black-liveried MCL40, with Lando Norris completing a 70-plus lap program and posting the third-fastest time. Alpine logged substantial miles through Franco Colapinto and Pierre Gasly. Haas’ Ollie Bearman posted the quickest lap outside Mercedes but was limited to roughly 40 laps after an early stoppage. Audi and Racing Bulls each triggered red flags — Audi’s Nico Hülkenberg stopped between Turns 9 and 10 — while Red Bull and Ferrari did not run, Aston Martin was due to appear the following day, and Williams missed the shakedown entirely.