Formula 1’s shakedown week began on a crisp but chilly day at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya with Mercedes’ W17 emerging from the garages first in the hands of Andrea Kimi Antonelli, followed in short order by Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.
Both Bortoleto and Colapinto would later be delayed with technical issues but the closed-door policy of what is billed as a shakedown rather than a test militated against immediate discovery of what those issues might be.
