'Not going to be easy' – Antonelli assesses 'tricky' Friday in Barcelona as he targets sixth win in a row

Kimi Antonelli believes that taking a sixth win in succession is "not going to be easy", as McLaren matched the pace of Mercedes in Friday practice ahead of the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix

Antonelli enters this weekend on the crest of a wave, with five consecutive wins to his name and a 66-point lead in the Drivers' Championship standings, but the 19-year-old found himself on the back foot in Barcelona.

The Italian missed Free Practice 1 as Mercedes test driver Fred Vesti got a rookie outing, and Antonelli could only manage P5 in FP2, more than half a second adrift of team mate, George Russell.

Russell had set the fastest time in FP1 but found himself between McLaren pairing Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in the afternoon session, with just 0.057s covering the trio.

"Definitely George looks very quick, McLaren look very quick as well so it's not going to be easy," said Antonelli. "We'll try to understand from tonight's work and we'll try to be ready for tomorrow."

He added: "It's been a bit tricky, single lap. The window is so small, tyres are overheating quite a lot.

"[I'm] just trying to find the best balance, of course with only one lap it's difficult, but I think overall there's still work to do, quite a bit, but I'm quite confident ahead of tomorrow."

With F1 returning to a more traditional track having previously raced in Monaco and Montreal, McLaren appear closer to Mercedes in Barcelona once again.

Mercedes Deputy Team Principal Bradley Lord believes tyres could be the crucial factor this weekend, with teams struggling in hot conditions and the temperature set to be even higher on Saturday.

"It looks like the pecking order is a little bit different to how it was in Monaco," he said. "Closer to what we probably saw in Miami.

"[It] Looks very tight between us and McLaren, Ferrari looked strong, particularly with Charles [Leclerc] on the long run as well in FP2.

"I think it will be a Qualifying session where everyone is complaining about overheating tyres and really just trying to get one lap out of the tyres to then put themselves in a strong position for Sunday.

"But equally, this is a place where race pace counts. We may see multiple stops in the race as well so getting the set-up right for the race is most important, even if qualifying strongly will help that too."