“Better now than in a race” – Kimi Antonelli breaks silence on Mercedes reliability issues. Andrea Kimi Antonelli sets the fastest time on the final day of Bahrain F1 testing.

On the final day of testing in Bahrain, the young Italian driver was finally able to run consistently, setting the fastest overall time of the session.

Fastest time for the Italian driver

Andrea Kimi Antonelli topped the timesheets on the third day of F1 testing in Bahrain, responding to the benchmark set in the morning by his Mercedes teammate George Russell. The Bologna-born driver also completed an impressive race simulation later in the session. However, despite the headline result, Kimi Antonelli described the overall three-day test as far from positive due to the reliability issues that forced him into the garage on Wednesday afternoon (suspension) and again on Thursday morning (power unit).

“It was a difficult session for us as a team, and especially for me,” Kimi Antonelli said. “We encountered several reliability problems that allowed me to complete just over 30 laps across the first two days. On Friday, though, I had a good afternoon where I was finally able to properly familiarize myself with the car here in Bahrain for the first time. We managed to complete a good number of single laps and then came close to finishing a race simulation.”

“Although this week has been frustrating, it’s much better to have these problems now and be able to solve them, rather than experiencing them during race weekends,” Kimi Antonelli added. “The team is already working on solutions to some of our issues, and we hope to come back stronger next week. Many of our rivals looked particularly competitive and seemed to have a much smoother drive than ours. We need to extract more from our package, and hopefully we can start to close part of the gap during the second and final pre-season test.”

Kimi Antonelli’s ability to jump into the car after two days of mechanical frustration and immediately set the fastest time of the week confirms why Mercedes placed their faith in the young Italian for the 2026 era. While the reliability of the W17 remains a significant question mark, Kimi Antonelli’s pace suggests that if the Brackley engineers can iron out the “frustrating” gremlins, the Silver Arrows will have a driver more than capable of taking the fight to the front of the grid.