Mercedes W17 ‘worked brilliantly’ as Shovlin casts Barcelona verdict

Mercedes trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, gave glowing feedback for how the W17 took to the track in Barcelona for shakedown running.

Mercedes is widely reported to have led the lap count across its three days of running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, proving its early reliability with an all-new chassis and power unit by clocking up 500 laps between George Russell and Kimi Antonelli.

Mercedes W17 ‘really impressive’ on reliability after first F1 2026 running

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust.

In itself, reliability is not an indicator of potential performance at this stage, but the significant amount of data Mercedes will have gathered will be helpful in informing its next steps moving forward.

Russell and Antonelli both ran near the top of the timing sheets throughout their three permitted days of track running, with Mercedes and Racing Bulls using three of the first four days to run their respective programmes.

Team members are often coy when responding to test outings, so as to not give too much away to their rivals, but Shovlin – a stalwart at the Brackley-based team since its days as BAR around the turn of the millennium – explained the progress the team was able to make came as a result of being able to tick over with so many laps last week.

“Well, it’s been really impressive from a reliability point of view,” Shovlin said after Mercedes’ running ended in Barcelona.

“There are all new systems on the car. It’s worked brilliantly. We finished a day early, but part of that is that the car’s just allowed us to run the programme day by day as we planned it.

Post-Barcelona F1 shakedown analysis

Shakedown conclusions: Mercedes back in the light, Red Bull finds peace, key Newey question

Winners and losers from the Barcelona testing shakedown (Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya)

“We were focused on just understanding the new systems. There’s always going to be a lot of challenges with new power units, new electronics.

“Obviously, the regulations are all new on the chassis side, but all of the areas that weren’t great on day one, we’ve made good progress, so that’s very encouraging – and that progress is actually making us quicker day by day. So that’s great.

“I think the reliability has just been amazing, which is a huge testament to all that work at Brixworth and at Brackley to bring this project together.”

A successful shakedown at Silverstone was followed by the team’s seemingly trouble-free showings in Barcelona, with Shovlin adding Mercedes had “ticked all the boxes” from both events in which the W17 had run so far.

Moving forward, the team’s trackside engineering director explained that, beyond proving reliability, the next step in Bahrain will be to optimise itself ahead of the new season – a strong checkpoint so early in pre-season.

“[In] Bahrain, we’re going to move more to setup exploration, trying to work out how you get the car in the right window,” he explained.

“Whilst you can do setup here [in Barcelona], it’s so cold, it’s not really relevant to any race track, so Bahrain is going to be a much better place to check that the car runs well at temperature, both in terms of the chassis performance side, but also just to the systems running effectively.

“That final Bahrain [test] hopefully will be more just about the race prep. So preparing for qualifying, preparing for race, and all the situations that that throws up.”

The first official pre-season test will take place at the Sakhir International Circuit from 11-13 February, with three more days of running scheduled for 18-20 February.

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read next: Adrian Newey and Aston Martin AMR26 question marks raised after Brundle conversation