Kimi Antonelli topped final practice at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia to recover from a disappointing Friday for the championship-leading Mercedes outfit.
The Silver Arrows brought a heavily upgraded W17 to Sepang, but only managed second and fifth in FP1 and seventh and eighth in FP2 with other teams looking stronger.
But the dominant outfit of 2026 responded perfectly on Saturday with Kimi Antonelli going quickest on a 1m36.302s, two tenths quicker than Max Verstappen who set the pace in first practice.
This comes on the weekend that Sepang is returning to F1 for the first time since 2017, which was the final race of an 18-year stint where mixed weather conditions were characteristic.
Yet F1 is still waiting to see that from the Malaysian track in 2026 as FP3, like FP1 and 2, was dry throughout but did have the first running of the expected main race tyre, the hard.
That’s because tyre degradation played a huge role in Friday practice on the hot, low-grip surface and Charles Leclerc set a 1m37.772s on the white-striped rubber early on.
It put the Ferrari driver in third, respectively 0.611s and 0.289s behind McLaren duo Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, who used the mediums with all three compounds shown.
Lando Norris, McLaren
The softs were used by those in the midfield downwards meaning Charles Leclerc was still the only driver to have the hards, but he was set to be joined by George Russell until the 25th-minute red flag.
That came after debris flew off Oliver Bearman’s Haas at Turn 10 and when the session resumed eight minutes later, with various drivers still yet to set a time, more soft tyre runs instead kicked in.
Source: Autosport
