F1, Sportrik Media - Kimi Antonelli brought out the red flag during the final morning of Formula 1 pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit after his Mercedes came to a halt shortly after Turn 10. The stoppage occurred just beyond the halfway mark of the session.
Antonelli’s W17 appeared to suffer a loss of energy deployment before stopping trackside, although the precise cause of the issue has not yet been officially confirmed by the team. Up until that reliability concern, the Italian had enjoyed a productive and competitive morning.
The 19-year-old had completed 49 laps and was running second on the timesheets with a 1:33.916, just over two-tenths of a second behind the benchmark set by Charles Leclerc, who posted a 1:33.689 for Ferrari.
Antonelli still holds the fastest lap across both official tests in Sakhir so far, having recorded a 1:32.803 the previous evening. That performance reinforced Mercedes’ position as one of the pre-season favourites, despite ongoing discussion surrounding the compression ratio of its power unit.
Within the context of the 2026 regulations — which place significant emphasis on the balance between internal combustion and electrical energy deployment — any irregularity in energy delivery is technically significant. Consistency in hybrid deployment remains central to race-pace simulation and long-run stability under the revised framework.
Antonelli is scheduled to hand the car over to team-mate George Russell for the afternoon session on the final day of testing. The remaining track time will be critical for Mercedes to complete its programme and clarify the nature of the issue before the championship begins.
With pre-season running drawing to a close, even isolated reliability setbacks can influence early-season preparedness. Mercedes will now focus on diagnosing the deployment anomaly while maximising the remaining data collection ahead of the opening round of the 2026 campaign.
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