Antonelli suffered " some bouncing in the high-speed segments" of the Barcelona circuit

Despite a promising opening day at the Spanish Grand Prix, Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli stated that he suffered "some bouncing in the high-speed segments" of the Barcelona circuit.

Mercedes endured its worst race weekend at Monte Carlo for a long time. George Russell suffered a technical issue in the middle part of qualifying while his team-mate Andrea Kimi Antonelli sustained a crash in Q1.

The two incident left the Maercedes pair line up in P14 and P15 on the grid respectively. From their disappointing starting positions, they were unable to make any real progress on a track where overtaking is nearly impossible.

On the back of their struggles in the Principality, Mercedes completed two successful practice sessions on Friday, displaying great speed on a track where they usually excel.

Reflecting on his day, Antonelli stated: "That was an interesting Friday. My first few laps on low fuel were proving tricky in FP1. I suffered from some bouncing in that first hour, mostly in the high-speed segments of the track.

"However, everything started to come together in FP2. I felt more confident lap after lap, and I was able to get into a good rhythm on the single runs.

"We purposefully adopted a slightly different approach on our long runs to George. We now will take the time to look at all the data we collected throughout the day and evaluate what the right direction is for the rest of the weekend.

"I can see we are making progress though, and with the overnight work tonight, I'm hopeful we will be able to have a competitive weekend."