2026 Bahrain Test One – Day Two

• The second day of the first test saw the team complete 57 laps in Bahrain.
• Kimi was in the car for the morning, but his running was curtailed by an issue that necessitated a Power Unit swap.
• The Italian was only able to complete three laps before his day came to a halt.
• George took over the W17 for the afternoon and, after leaving the garage one hour into the session, enjoyed more productive running than his team-mate had.
• Working through several test items on the C3 tyre exclusively, he completed 54 laps and finished the day P4 on the timing screens.
• The final day of the first test takes place tomorrow with George in the car in the morning before Kimi takes over for the afternoon.
  

Kimi Antonelli

It was a frustrating morning on my side as we were limited to just three laps of running due to a Power Unit issue. That wasn't ideal after losing several hours of track time yesterday afternoon too. Whilst it is a setback, this is exactly what testing is about. We need to work through these issues to be in the strongest possible position come the first race in Melbourne.

On the positive side, George was able to complete lots of laps in the afternoon and add to our learning. We also have four more days of running here in Bahrain, which gives us plenty of time to catch-up on the time we've lost. I'm looking forward to getting back into the W17 tomorrow and having a smoother time than we've enjoyed across these first two days.

George Russell

After our limited running in the morning, it was important that we worked through as much of the afternoon programme as possible. We were able to do that and completed over 50 laps before the end of the day.

Our running was focused exclusively on the C3 tyre as we continued to build our knowledge of the W17. We were able to make a step forward with the overall balance compared to yesterday, but we’ve still got lots of work to do. I’m looking forward to being back in the car tomorrow morning and hopefully we can make good progress.

Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director

We’ve endured another frustrating day here in Bahrain. Kimi lost the entire morning session after we found an issue with the Power Unit; changing the whole unit was quicker than swapping the affected part but unfortunately meant we weren't back on track with George until one hour into the afternoon running.

George thankfully had a better time of it than Kimi. After yesterday's issues, we're still behind on the setup work but at least got the car into a reasonable window by the end of the day. We'll focus on trying to recover the lost running tomorrow. We've got George in the car for the morning and Kimi for the afternoon and hopefully can finish the week with a solid, trouble-free day. There are a few issues that we need to dig into on the performance side and hopefully we can make more progress ahead of next week’s second test.