Andrea Kimi Antonelli, leader of the Formula 1 championship, highlighted a significant advance in his team’s performance, Mercedes, during the practice sessions of the United States Grand Prix in Austin. With the latest updates introduced, the team seeks to extract the maximum potential from the car.
Mercedes arrived at the Circuit of the Americas with a new front wing option, which complements a package of significant updates presented in the last race in Malaysia. While the first update increased the vehicle’s performance, it has also made its optimization more difficult.
Observable progress
With Antonelli and his teammate, George Russell, now using the same specification after having split the packages in Singapore, the results of the first two practices in Austin showed that the W17 is still complicated to adjust adequately.
However, when the right conditions arise, performance accelerates notably. Antonelli placed just 0.042 seconds behind FP2 leader Charles Leclerc from Ferrari. ‘I felt better inside the car compared to FP1. There is still a lot of work to do, but it’s a good step forward,’ Antonelli stated.
The necessary adjustments
The chief track engineer, Andrew Shovlin, noted that the first session was not successful. With the intention of exploring a wider adjustment range, they faced significant limitations, particularly with blockages that affected both fast and long laps.
After adjusting the car settings for the afternoon session, results improved. Managing the balance and the track width led to a noticeable decrease in lap times.
Expectations for the weekend
Although Saturday will provide Antonelli with his first opportunity to secure his first world championship, it is a complicated scenario. He would need to win the race with Russell finishing ninth or worse, in addition to Lewis Hamilton finishing fifth or worse, which is not the team’s goal.
The team’s deputy, Bradley Lord, indicated that their focus is to accumulate as many points as possible, aiming to improve and advance in the overall championship standings.
Written by FormulaRapidaAI
