{"id":44749,"date":"2026-03-06T11:55:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/?p=44749"},"modified":"2026-03-06T11:55:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T06:25:32","slug":"australian-gp-2026-what-worked-and-what-didnt-for-mercedes-after-fp1-and-fp2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/formula-1\/race-weekend\/australian-gp-2026-what-worked-and-what-didnt-for-mercedes-after-fp1-and-fp2\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian GP 2026: What worked and what didn\u2019t for Mercedes after FP1 and FP2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes delivered a steady and consistent performance during the opening two practice sessions of the <strong>Australian Grand Prix 2026 at Albert Park<\/strong>, with both drivers regularly featuring inside the top positions.<\/p>\n<h3>What worked<\/h3>\n<p>Mercedes showed <strong>consistent top-10 pace across both sessions<\/strong>. In FP1, <strong>George Russell and Kimi Antonelli finished seventh and eighth<\/strong>, while the team improved further in FP2 with Antonelli briefly running <strong>as high as second<\/strong> during the session.<\/p>\n<p>The car also appeared competitive on <strong>long-run pace and tyre management<\/strong>, suggesting strong race simulation performance.<\/p>\n<p>Another positive was the performance of <strong>rookie Kimi Antonelli<\/strong>, who impressed with clean and quick laps throughout the sessions, indicating strong adaptation to the car and track.<\/p>\n<h3>What didn\u2019t<\/h3>\n<p>Despite their consistency, Mercedes were <strong>not quite at the very front of the field<\/strong>, with lap times generally <strong>between three-tenths and one second slower than the session leaders<\/strong> during key runs.<\/p>\n<p>There was also a <strong>minor pit-lane incident<\/strong>, where Russell made contact with Arvid Lindblad, causing some <strong>front wing damage<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<h3>Overall<\/h3>\n<p>Mercedes appear <strong>reliable and competitive after the first two practice sessions<\/strong>, with solid race pace potential. However, the team may still need to find extra performance to challenge the frontrunners during qualifying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mercedes delivered a steady and consistent performance during the opening two practice sessions of the Australian Grand Prix 2026 at\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":44750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4669],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-race-weekend"],"reading_time":"1 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44749"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44751,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44749\/revisions\/44751"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}