Mercedes tops Friday practice at Madrid's new Madring

Formula 1 arrived in the Spanish capital for the first time in decades, and Mercedes made the most of the unknown. George Russell topped the opening session on the 5.414 km (3.364 miles) Madring, before Kimi Antonelli went quickest in second practice. Behind the headline times, the team says tyre wear is the real question hanging over Sunday’s 57-lap race.

Formula 1’s first Friday in Madrid belonged to Mercedes. George Russell set the benchmark in the opening hour and Kimi Antonelli took over at the top in the afternoon, giving the team a promising start on a circuit nobody had driven before.

A brand-new circuit with 22 corners

The Madring runs to 5.414 km (3.364 miles) and features 22 corners. According to the team, this weekend marks the first Formula 1 race held in the Spanish capital since 1981, and the layout presents a significant challenge for cars and drivers alike, with fast corners and walls close to the track edge.

That made the first hour as much about learning as lap time. After the early sighting laps, both Mercedes drivers found their rhythm and moved to the front while most of the grid concentrated on a single quick lap.

Tyre wear shapes the afternoon

With degradation running high, the majority of the field opted for a second set of medium tyres in the second session rather than opening a hard set, keeping both sets of the hardest compound available for Sunday.

A red flag interrupted the hour, but Mercedes still completed a solid programme on both low and high fuel. Antonelli headed the times courtesy of his second run on the soft tyre, while Russell ended the session fifth. The team says he managed only one genuine quick lap, because his tyres were not fully switched on at the start of it.

Both cars closed the day with a short long run on the medium compound to gather data ahead of the 57-lap Grand Prix.

What the team took away

Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin said preparation for a new venue is decisive, and that both drivers improved steadily through first practice. Getting the tyres into their working range was tricky at first, he said, but grip proved surprisingly high once they were there.

“We did a lot of work on a single lap, but the long run was cut short by the red flag in second practice. We did see that the front tyres take a lot of punishment, and that will probably be the same on Sunday. It looks tight at the front. If we want to fight for the front row tomorrow evening, we need to find a bit more pace.”

Qualifying looks decisive

The recurring theme from the Mercedes camp was that overtaking looked difficult during the long runs, which puts extra weight on Saturday’s qualifying session. One of the team’s drivers noted that the smooth asphalt made it hard to get the tyres working on the opening lap of a run — something Mercedes intends to address overnight and in final practice.

Turn 12 was singled out as particularly hard on the tyres, and managing that over a race distance is the issue the team says it must solve to stay in contention for the top places.