{"id":38779,"date":"2026-01-28T15:43:35","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=38779"},"modified":"2026-01-28T15:45:32","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T20:45:32","slug":"even-mercedes-surprised-by-bulletproof-w17-in-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2026\/01\/28\/even-mercedes-surprised-by-bulletproof-w17-in-barcelona\/","title":{"rendered":"Even Mercedes surprised by bulletproof W17 in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

This likely isn’t the first article you have read about Mercedes<\/a> this winter. Even those who haven’t read any analysis about the Mercedes W17 will be familiar with the expectations following the Brackley team.<\/p>\n

In many ways, the hype surrounding Mercedes seemed impossible to live up to. Both in terms of performance and reliability, the Silver Arrows were described as the team to beat<\/a> before even setting a lap.<\/p>\n

Somehow, in just two of their three allocated days of running in Barcelona, Mercedes are already going above and beyond.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes W17, Barcelona Test, Steve Etherington<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mercedes surpass their own expectations<\/h2>\n

Wednesday was a relatively busy day in the Barcelona circuit, with six teams taking to the track. Generally speaking it was a productive day, with only a few red flags interrupting the day’s action.<\/p>\n

Despite this, it would be inaccurate to suggest the level of efficiency was similar across the field. One team, Mercedes, stood out.<\/p>\n

Prior to this week’s shakedown, the prevailing narrative about the German manufacturer’s engine has been clear – it is expected to set the standard. Because of this, even a small hiccup might have contradicted this feeling of inevitability surrounding Toto Wolff’s squad<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, testing has gone perfectly smoothly for Mercedes. In fact, considering the 2026 cars are brand new, their current level reliability is slightly ominous.<\/p>\n

The W17<\/a> completed over 180 laps today, bringing it’s overall tally in Catalunya to over 300. This puts Mercedes over a hundred laps ahead of the team with second-most mileage so far.<\/p>\n

Speaking after a very productive day, Head of Trackside Engineering Andrew Shovlin gave his verdict:<\/p>\n

“Pretty pleased with today, obviously two days done out of three. We’ve more or less ticked of all our objectives, so really pleased how the car’s gone today.<\/em><\/p>\n

“We’ve manage to do two race distances with it, both drivers feeling that now. But the car was going strong at the end, so it was really encouraging.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Mileage, we’re a bit ahead of where we hoped to be – so that’s good. You normally expect to have a few teething problems, a reliability thing that costs you track time.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Today the car worked faultlessly. We’re actually losing more track time from other people breaking down and causing red flags than from anything on our side.<\/em><\/p>\n

“In terms of data gathered, we’re getting there. But as all the electrical systems are new, there’s still a few issues we’re bottoming out with collecting the data and making sure everything is as accurate as we normally have it.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
George Russell, Mercedes W17, Barcelona Test, Steve Etherington<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Mercedes turn to set-up work and low fuel simulations<\/h4>\n

The first signs of how robust this W17 could be were demonstrated at the Mercedes filming day in Silverstone. Conducted a few days before arriving at Barcelona, this event saw the Silver Arrows complete a race distance with minimal difficulty.<\/p>\n

Executing such an exhaustive programme at a filming day, and having the confidence to so, was a strong indicator that Mercedes were confident about their work in the build-up to 2026.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the team’s smooth testing so far puts them even further ahead of schedule<\/a>. They now have the luxury of analysing more specific aspects of their 2026 challengers.<\/p>\n

This includes lower fuel runs, bringing the W17 closer to qualifying trim and giving the engineers in Brackley a clearer picture of how their latest machine behaves when pushed closer to the limits.<\/p>\n

Shovlin discussed Mercedes’ plans for their final day of the Barcelona shakedown:<\/p>\n

“They’re [the drivers] are happy with the car, it’s a nicer thing to drive than the previous regulations. It’s a bit lighter, it turns quite nicely for them, we’ve got a decent balance there in high-speed.<\/em><\/p>\n

“But ultimately, whether they’re happy or not will come down to whether they’re quick or not…<\/em><\/p>\n

“Today we were focusing more on proving the reliability, the longer run work. Final days, we’re going to get stuck into a bit of set-up work, trying to just explore what we can do with the tools available. <\/em><\/p>\n

“Try and get the car dialled in a bit better, so working as well on the softer range of the tyres and we’ll do a bit of that with both [drivers].<\/em><\/p>\n

“That then gives a load of information to take back to analyse ahead of Bahrain. We can do more work with drivers on the simulator, making sure that correlates well.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Main photo: Sam Bloxham (Mercedes F1 Media Archive)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This likely isn’t the first article you have read about Mercedes this winter. Even those who haven’t read any analysis about the Mercedes W17 will be familiar with the expectations following the Brackley team. In many ways, the hype surrounding Mercedes seemed impossible to live up to. Both in terms of performance and reliability, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":38780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2582,121,2596],"class_list":["post-38779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-f1-2026-season","tag-mercedes","tag-w17"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38779"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38786,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38779\/revisions\/38786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}