Mercedes ended Friday “a bit lost” after a problematic second day of testing in Bahrain.
The Brackley-based team caused the only unscheduled red flag of the day as a hydraulics issue for George Russell ended the Briton’s day 90 minutes early.
This after teammate Lewis Hamilton struggled for balance in the hot temperatures during the morning session, with the W14 seen scrambling for traction out of slow corners.
As a result, both drivers finished towards the bottom of the timesheet, with Mercedes the only team not to complete over 100 laps of running.
“We’re a bit lost, as we don’t know where we stand right now,” team boss Toto Wolff told Auto Motor und Sport.
Speaking earlier on F1TV, the Austrian was asked if the balance issues were a concern for Mercedes…
“Yeah, it definitely is because it’s not the driver who’s overdriving the tyres or pushing it, it’s the car that doesn’t give him enough grip from the rear,” Wolff replied. “So this is something we need to sort out over the course of the journey.”
After the day was over, Wolff, Hamilton, Russell and senior engineers were seen deep in discussion in the Bahrain paddock.
#F1: bigger meeting at Mercedes with Wolff, the drivers, some engineers after day 2, which was not according to plan.#AMuS, #F1Testing pic.twitter.com/2pnAHp2MQQ
— Andreas Haupt (@andihaupt1) February 24, 2023
And Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin admitted the debrief would go long in the night.
“We’ve not had a strong second day,” he conceded. “We’ve got some investigations going on to understand why this has been such a challenge today when yesterday it was fairly straightforward.
“That work will continue into the night and no doubt we’ll understand more come the morning,” he added. “It will be interesting tomorrow to see if we can understand the drop in performance and mitigate the lost track time.”
As for the drivers, Hamilton described his stint as “difficult” while Russell tried to put a positive spin on the situation.
“Even though we didn’t complete our full programme, we uncovered some interesting things in the data throughout the day,” he said. “That’s a positive, and we will analyse these overnight with the aim of finding lap time.
“We haven’t unlocked everything yet in the W14 and everyone is working hard to do so and maximise our final day of testing tomorrow.”
Tough day. Let’s make tomorrow a better one. ? pic.twitter.com/NeahyJ7bMB
— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) February 24, 2023