First practice ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix was ruined for Kimi Antonelli after he suffered a mechanical problem. And his Mercedes team’s efforts to fix the issue led to some “quite bizarre” scenes in their garage on Friday.
Antonelli headed out on track at the start of the first hour of running along with the other 19 cars, including six rookie drivers given a chance to impress. One of those was Mercedes reserve Frederik Vesti whose run gave George Russell the chance to relax in the garage.
He ended up being joined by his Italian team-mate, not that Antonelli wanted to be there. Not long after the start of the session, he reported over the radio that he had “no power” and limped back to the pit lane at low speed.
It wasn’t long after he returned and jumped out of the car that the Sky Sports F1 coverage cut to reporter Ted Kravitz in the pits who was watching with amusement as the Mercedes mechanics suffered a rather more low-tech problem than usual as they tried to get to the affected area of the car.
They were trying to open up the back of the car but, clearly, something was jamming it in place. TV cameras in the pit lane broadcast the scenes live as several mechanics attempted to yank a panel off with brute force.
And that prompted Kravitz to say: “I believe they’re trying to separate the gearbox from the back of the engine, and it’s not coming off. When you need Carl, one of the chief mechanics who has got some heft and strength about him, to actually try to separate this car, it’s quite unusual to see that.
“Give it a wobble by all means, but if you start doing that then you start worrying about bending connecting pins and things like that. It’s quite extreme. They need to pull the gearbox off from where the engine is, I believe. Give it a wobble, but easy does it. They’re giving it a proper pull.”
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His colleagues in the Sky commentary box were also rather amused by the scenes. That included former F1 driver Karun Chandhok who said: “I have not seen this for a long time. This is old-school F1 – give it a big shove and try to get it off.”
Rachel Brookes, leading the commentary in that first session of the weekend, then made a tongue-in-cheek suggestion for Kravitz down in the pit lane. “Go and give them a hand, Ted,” she said.
But the reporters’ reply was: “When Carl, all six foot four of him, and a lot of strength is involved, Rachel, I’d be the least amount of help in there. All of it amounts, of course, to the fact that we can probably assume that it is session over for Kimi Antonelli.”
Brookes rounded off that section by saying: “We’ll wait to see if they manage to get that off. Quite a bizarre scene at Mercedes right now.” Unfortunately for Antonelli, he would spend the rest of the session out of his car having completed just three laps, as the team confirmed he had suffered a loss of water pressure which had put the car into ‘limp home mode’.
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