Lewis Hamilton and George Russell did their best to remain upbeat after an underwhelming pre-season test in Bahrain, although both have acknowledged that their new Mercedes W14 is not where they would like it to be for the upcoming season.
The Silver Arrows have been a dominant force in F1 over the past decade, scooping up eight Constructors’ Championships in a row between 2014 and 2021. The new ground-effect design era has seen a shift in the balance of power, however, and Red Bull romped to victory last year.
Mercedes dropped from first to third as they grappled with porpoising issues for the majority of the season. Their unveiling for the 2023 campaign revealed that the W14 was not a radically different design, with the team instead choosing to work on what they already had.
Three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain turned out to be a fairly gloomy affair for Mercedes, with Red Bull once again establishing themselves as the class of the field while Hamilton and Russell lagged behind.
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With the dust settling ahead of next weekend’s curtain-raiser, Hamilton has acknowledged that the car is ‘not where he wants it to be’. “I think it’s difficult to sum it up,” he explained. “We’ve had a couple of difficult days – [Friday] particularly was difficult. The first day didn’t feel too bad, [but Friday] was a little bit more of a struggle.
“There has been a lot of discovery and the whole team has approached it with the same mentality, working hard, not being complacent and staying focused. We’re not quite where we want to be but it’s a good platform to start from.
“We don’t know where we will be next week, but we will stay positive and continue to push to the maximum. Right now, the bouncing that we had has pretty much gone, so that’s a huge step for us. It’s nice to drive without the bouncing for once, but there are still some underlying things that we’re working through.
“Some of the balance limitations that we had last year are present – we’re working through them. [But] I’m really proud of everyone in the team for continuing to remain positive after a tough year last year, [doing] amazing through the winter for us to drive and have the mileage that we’ve had.”
Russell, who pipped Hamilton in last year’s points standings and claimed the team’s only Grand Prix win of the season in 2022, was pretty much on the same page as the seven-time world champion, admitting that the team ‘still have plenty of work to do’.
“We had a much more positive day [on Saturday],” he said. “We took a step forward and made progress with the issues we faced [on Friday]. I believe we have improved the car over the course of testing and got the W14 in a much better window. There is still plenty of work to do but we’re in better shape for next week with more to come.”
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