Kimi Antonelli spent part of Friday at Barcelona doing something most drivers only talk about — slipping into the crowd to actually watch Formula 1 from the grandstand. The twist was the disguise: a Spider-Man mask pulled on beneath the hood of his Mercedes kit, in an attempt to disappear in plain sight during FP1.
It was an idea with a familiar Mercedes flavour. George Russell tried something similar last season in Mexico City, soaking up the atmosphere at the Foro Sol without being mobbed. Antonelli’s version, though, was never going to be quite as covert. The mask didn’t fully cover his face and he wasn’t exactly dressed like a neutral tourist — full team gear tends to give the game away — but the intent was clear: step outside the paddock bubble for a moment and take in how the weekend feels from the other side of the fences.
Antonelli had the time because he wasn’t in the car for FP1. Mercedes used one of its mandated rookie sessions to hand running to reserve driver Fred Vesti, leaving Antonelli on the sidelines early in the day alongside race engineer Peter “Bono” Bonnington. From there, the championship leader wandered out to the main grandstand overlooking the start-finish straight, sat down among the fans, and watched the cars flash past like everyone else.
If the goal was anonymity, the world feed cameras weren’t particularly helpful. They picked him out during the session, and Mercedes’ own content crew was hardly trying to keep it a secret either, filming the whole adventure as Antonelli played the part. Still, the amusing part is that it seemed to work where it mattered: in the stands, he wasn’t hassled, and he was able to sit through the session undisturbed before heading back to the garage.
Then it was straight back to business.
Antonelli returned to the W17 for FP2 and ended the session fifth-fastest. Russell, meanwhile, was second quickest as Mercedes looked reasonably settled across the day, even with McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri showing encouraging pace in practice and setting the early benchmark for the weekend.
After climbing out of the car, Antonelli’s focus was on the same headache most of the pitlane has been wrestling with in Barcelona: keeping the tyres in the right place over a single lap. The margins are thin, the window is tight, and once the rubber tips over the edge, it’s gone.
“It’s been a bit tricky, single lap, just the [operating] window is so small,” Antonelli said. “Tyres are overheating quite a lot, so just trying to find the best balance, of course, with only one lap, where each set is always difficult, but I think overall there’s still work to do, quite a bit, but I’m quite confident ahead of tomorrow.
“Long run was good in the practice, so that’s a positive, but yeah, definitely looking forward to tomorrow, and looking forward to the changes that we’re going to make.”
That’s the more telling part of Mercedes’ Friday than the mask, fun as it was. Antonelli’s comments point to a car that’s basically in the fight on race-style running, with a bit of head-scratching still required when it comes to extracting a clean qualifying lap without cooking the tyres on the way. It’s a familiar modern-F1 problem, but it tends to show up more harshly in Barcelona — a circuit that doesn’t let you bluff your way through a lap.
For Antonelli, though, the day also offered a small glimpse of how quickly his life has changed. A year or two ago he’d have been the teenager in the grandstand craning for a view. Now he’s leading the Drivers’ Championship and still having to pull a mask over his face to get five quiet minutes among the people who’ve turned up to watch him.
He’ll trade the costume for a helmet when it counts on Saturday. Mercedes will hope the set-up changes he referenced do what they need to do, because if the W17 can keep its long-run promise and sharpen up over one lap, this weekend could become less about crowd-spotting and more about control of the championship narrative.
