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Kimi Antonelli believes the F1 power units will be dealt a "shock" next weekend in Melbourne at the opening round of the season.

The regulations have gone through a significant change this year, which includes a larger emphasis on the electrical output, which now matches the combustion engine.

Drivers are now having to focus heavily on harvesting and deploying energy around the lap, establishing a much different way of driving compared to the past.

Antonelli stated that his pre-season preparations after Bahrain will involve heavy sim work to further extract potential from the battery.

"It's mainly to get the deployment right, because Melbourne is going to be a lot different from what we've experienced [in Bahrain]," Antonelli told media including RacingNews365.

"And for the battery, it's going to be quite a bit of a shock in Melbourne. We just need to find the best deployment.

"That's why there will be a lot of sim work, just to get it right."

After the shakedown event from Barcelona, the teams had six days of running in Bahrain to optimise energy management.

However, Antonelli detailed that it will be a much more difficult task to get them into the right window at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix with just three hours of practice preceding the competitive sessions.

"[In Bahrain] we had six days of testing, so plenty of time to tune it and to find the best way," he said.

"But in Melbourne we only have three practice sessions and then into qualifying. So just need to really be spot on from the first session."

Also interesting:

Join RacingNews365's Ian Parkes, Sam Coop and Nick Golding, as they look back on pre-season testing and start to look ahead to the Australian GP! Aston Martin's major issues are a lead discussion, as is Ferrari's lightning starts.

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