2026 Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team

[OverheatedTurbo]

Bunch of bullocks. Should have brought the upgrades this weekend since the FP1 was an 1 and 30 minutes. Canada is also a Sprint weekend and the FP sesh is less. What a mistake. Race pace looks good tho.

[Y-250.A]

Mercedes should not have been in this position on the fourth race of the season. I will give it the benefit of the doubt because it's just sprint quali of a rather long weekend, so perhaps we're overplaying the result a bit. It could still be that Merc just blasts past everyone on the races. They were definitely the fastest in FP long runs at least.
Makes no sense for them to be beat so early even when accounting for McLaren's upgrades. Kimi was almost a second per lap faster than Oscar in free air in Japan.

that's what I said also , its too early to call it a failure I'm pretty sure they will come back stronger during the sprint and also for the rest of the weekend .

[zibby43]

Shov:

“It's always important to hit the ground running on a Sprint weekend and we unfortunately didn’t manage that today. We didn’t have the car in the right place in FP1, and the drivers were struggling to put laps together from the off. Our long run pace was more encouraging but still not where we'd like it to be. Added to that, we had an issue that interrupted George's early running and another that brought an early end to Kimi's session, costing him laps on the Soft tyre.

Our difficulties carried into Sprint Qualifying. Kimi faired better than George but it's clear that we have time to find overnight on our energy management and overall car set-up. It seems our competitors have brought a bit more performance to this event than we have, but the W17 has been a well-balanced car at all the circuits we've been to this year and today it has been a handful. We will work hard to improve that for Grand Prix Qualifying and into Sunday’s race.”

[OverheatedTurbo]

What a clown-show this team is. I expect a whole new car for Canada. Bringing no upgrades here was a big mistake and they’re getting exposed for it for being conservative. Russell is getting beaten by ANT handily, an embarrassment.

[Matt2725]

George gave Kimi way too much quarter on the start. Should have squeezed him to the edge of the track and he may have had the better race.

[Lasssept]

"The pace is there"

[Badger]

Antonelli demoted 2 places.

[Matt2725]

Kimi with a 5 second penalty demotes him to P6 behind Max.

[Emag]

"The pace is there"

I don't know why but I find your comments with the " " emojis very funny

[OverheatedTurbo]

"The pace is there"

I don't know why but I find your comments with the " " emojis very funny

For real haha!

[Lasssept]

[venkyhere]

What a clown-show this team is. I expect a whole new car for Canada. Bringing no upgrades here was a big mistake and they’re getting exposed for it for being conservative. Russell is getting beaten by ANT handily, an embarrassment.

Oh. My. God.
Didn't expect to read that in this thread for the entirety of 2026. The thread dedicated to the factory team of the best engine on the grid. All it took was a missed podium on the 4th track of the year. That too in a sprint race.

[OverheatedTurbo]

What a clown-show this team is. I expect a whole new car for Canada. Bringing no upgrades here was a big mistake and they’re getting exposed for it for being conservative. Russell is getting beaten by ANT handily, an embarrassment.

Oh. My. God.
Didn't expect to read that in this thread for the entirety of 2026. The thread dedicated to the factory team of the best engine on the grid. All it took was a missed podium on the 4th track of the year. That too in a sprint race.

Indeed it has. XD

[FittingMechanics]

What a clown-show this team is. I expect a whole new car for Canada. Bringing no upgrades here was a big mistake and they’re getting exposed for it for being conservative. Russell is getting beaten by ANT handily, an embarrassment.

Oh. My. God.
Didn't expect to read that in this thread for the entirety of 2026. The thread dedicated to the factory team of the best engine on the grid. All it took was a missed podium on the 4th track of the year. That too in a sprint race.

To be fair if they end up losing to McLaren and Ferrari through the season (maybe Red Bull as well) after looking so dominant it will be seen as a huge failure.

It is early but also unexpected.

[AR3-GP]

The poor getaway came in spite of Antonelli really working hard during the April break to improve upon his lap one fortunes, which had threatened to plague his otherwise successful start to 2026 with victories in China and Japan.

Antonelli told Sky Sports: “We've been doing work over the break and on my side for once I did everything right with the procedures, so we need to check what happened.

“The grip was very low, probably lower than we expected and then after that I was really frustrated, I didn't even drive well, I did a lot of mistakes.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/kimi ... /10817401/

He's going to get better. People just have to be patient.