{"id":465149,"date":"2026-02-07T21:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T21:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/465149\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T21:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T21:49:12","slug":"ex-f1-driver-claims-w17-ran-seconds-off-full-potential-in-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/465149\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-F1 driver claims W17 ran \u2018seconds&#8217; off full potential in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/Jean-pablo-Montoya\" title=\"Juan Pablo Montoya\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Juan Pablo Montoya<\/a> believes Mercedes still had plenty in reserve during the Barcelona tests.\u201cFrom what I\u2019ve heard, the lap times being set in Barcelona were still three to four seconds away from the car\u2019s full potential\u201d- Juan Pablo Montoya<\/p>\n<p>Despite ultimately not setting the fastest time of the test \u2014 which went to Lewis Hamilton late on \u2014 Mercedes showed some encouraging early signs with the new W17 in Barcelona.<\/p>\n<p>Both Kimi Antonelli and George Russell logged a significant amount of mileage, completing a total of 500 laps over the three days, while already demonstrating noteworthy reliability from the new power unit.<\/p>\n<p>However, speaking on the MontoyAS podcast, the Colombian believes the Silver Arrows were still a long way from showing their true potential: \u201cI\u2019ll give you an idea to put things into perspective: from what I\u2019ve heard, the lap times being set in Barcelona were still three to four seconds away from the car\u2019s full potential.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs always, some will get it right and some will get it wrong. The interesting part is this: if Mercedes really is significantly ahead, then all the Mercedes-powered teams should be strong. It then becomes about figuring out who truly looks competitive, who is missing something, and where everyone actually stands. That\u2019s the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"280\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/antonelli-merc-6977be5a3fbdc.jpg@webp.webp\" class=\"w-auto h-auto\" alt=\"Antonelli-mercedes-jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo: Mercedes AMG F1 Team<\/p>\n<p>Wolff holds fire on W17 potential until Verstappen lays cards on the table<\/p>\n<p>The Austrian, speaking to a small group of media including GPblog, said the early signs from the car were positive, but insisted it was too early to read too much into the data until lap times become genuinely representative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe haven\u2019t seen Max push the car, and we haven\u2019t seen McLaren or Ferrari show what they can really do. I\u2019d therefore be careful about saying it was great for us. We simply don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpblog.com\/en\/news\/wolff-cools-mercedes-hype-we-havent-seen-verstappen-pushing-the-car\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Read the full story here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Juan Pablo Montoya believes Mercedes still had plenty in reserve during the Barcelona tests.\u201cFrom what I\u2019ve heard, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,35119,813,816,870,189983,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-465149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-f1-news","12":"tag-formula-1","13":"tag-formula1","14":"tag-juan-pablo-montoya","15":"tag-mercedes-amg-f1-team","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}