
Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s smartphone pings to signal the arrival of his Thursday schedule. As with all things Mercedes, its promptness is matched by its detail: a little over 24 hours remain until his first race-weekend track session as a fully-fledged Formula 1 driver, but he has already been in Melbourne for several days to align his body clock with the local timings.
"Are we really going to manage to do all this today?" Kimi asks after scrutinising the colour-coded spreadsheet.