George Russell ended Friday practice at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix just 0.009 seconds behind pacesetter Lando Norris in FP2, while third driver Fred Vesti made his first outing in the Mercedes W17 during the opening session.
Mercedes ran three drivers across the two practice sessions at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, with Vesti stepping into Kimi Antonelli’s car for FP1 as part of the team’s mandatory rookie running program. The Danish driver completed a program mirroring Russell’s, using Medium and Soft compound tires across a mix of single-lap and long-run work. Vesti finished the session 15th after completing his low-fuel qualifying simulation runs significantly earlier than the rest of the field, though the team noted he contributed useful long-run data.
Russell topped the FP1 timesheets before carrying his strong form into the afternoon session, where he finished second overall, narrowly missing out on the fastest time to McLaren’s Norris. The result underlined Mercedes’ competitiveness heading into the remainder of the weekend.
Antonelli returned to the cockpit for FP2 and ran both Medium and Soft compound tires, finishing fifth fastest on his single-lap pace. The Italian’s session focused on gathering race-relevant data, with his long runs conducted on the Soft tire while Russell used the Medium compound for his race simulation work. The split in tire strategy between the two cars allowed Mercedes to collate a broader set of data ahead of Sunday’s grand prix.
The team confirmed it kept both sets of Hard compound tires unused on Friday, reserving them for later in the weekend when race strategy decisions will come into sharper focus.
Vesti’s appearance marked the first of four mandatory rookie sessions Mercedes must complete during the 2026 season, a requirement designed to give young and reserve drivers meaningful track time in current-specification machinery. His FP1 outing provided the team with an additional data point while giving the Dane valuable experience in the W17.
With Russell showing pace within thousandths of the outright fastest time and Antonelli comfortably inside the top five, Mercedes appears well positioned as the Barcelona weekend moves into qualifying and the race.