Antonelli bounces back from troubled Friday to lead Mercedes 1-4 in Malaysian FP3

Kimi Antonelli put Mercedes back on top at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia on Saturday, posting a 1m36.302s in FP3 at Sepang to recover from a Friday that had left the championship-leading team as low as seventh and eighth in the order.

The result was a timely response from the dominant outfit of the 2026 season. Mercedes had arrived at Sepang with a heavily upgraded W17, yet managed only second and fifth in FP1 and seventh and eighth in FP2 as rival teams looked more comfortable on the hot, low-grip surface.

Antonelli, the 20-year-old points leader, wasted no time on his first push lap after the session’s red-flag interruption, going quickest with a 1m36.924s before improving further to seal top spot. His final benchmark left Isack Hadjar’s Red Bull 0.278s adrift in second, with team-mate Max Verstappen — who had set the pace in FP1 — a further 0.278s back in third. George Russell completed a Mercedes 1-4 in fourth, 0.610s off his team-mate.

Charles Leclerc was fifth for Ferrari, 0.714s behind Antonelli, with Lewis Hamilton sixth on a 1m37.041s. McLaren’s Lando Norris took seventh, his best time set on the medium compound, with Oscar Piastri eighth.

The session was briefly halted by a red flag in the 25th minute after debris came off Oliver Bearman’s Haas at Turn 10. The stoppage disrupted several drivers’ tyre programmes — George Russell had been set to join Leclerc in running the hard compound before the interruption — and when running resumed, teams largely switched back to softs for their flying laps.

Tyre degradation has been a defining theme across all three practice sessions at Sepang, which is hosting Formula 1 for the first time since 2017 after an 18-year stint on the calendar. The Malaysian circuit was historically associated with mixed weather conditions, but all three sessions in 2026 have been run in dry conditions. FP3 did, however, see the first meaningful running on the hard tyre expected to be the primary race compound, with Leclerc’s early 1m37.772s on the white-walled rubber placing him third at that stage behind McLaren’s Norris and Piastri.

Red Bull placed both cars inside the top three for the second time this weekend, underlining that the battle for pole position is unlikely to be a straightforward affair for Mercedes despite Antonelli’s recovery.