The first of three days of F1 2023 car development testing in Bahrain was quite encouraging for Mercedes: the new W14 didn’t have any of last year’s jump issues, was fairly stable and – according to the team – proved to be a good baseline for its further upgrades.

But the optimism of the first day gave way yesterday (February 24th) to thinking about the second day of testing. In the morning, in his 72 laps, Lewis Hamilton initially had obvious grip problems with frequent rear slippage, which apparently struggled in the cockpit of the W14. And then, in the afternoon, George Russell was grounded on the track because of a hydraulic problem that left him only in 4th gear.

Mercedes F1 Test Team Technical Director Andrew Sovlin had described the W14 as “much quieter and more stable” than last year’s W13 on Thursday evening (23/02), but twenty-four hours later he admitted that “We didn’t have such a strong second day. It’s no big deal to pull up at the edge of the track with a reliability issue and we struggled to find the car’s balance in the changing conditions.”

Shovlin said the team will investigate the issues Friday night: “We’re investigating why we had such a challenging day compared to yesterday, which went pretty smoothly.

“This work will continue in the evening and we will understand more in the morning [του Σαββάτου 25/02]. It will be interesting to see if we can figure out what caused the drop in performance and if we can make up for lost time.”concluded Shovlin.

For his part, team manager Toto Wolff explained: “The car was out of balance this morning. You can see that in the marks left by the tires on the asphalt when you accelerate. It’s very hot and we just couldn’t find the right settings for the conditions. But that’s part of learning the car, I think.”

The Austrian did not deny that this situation worries the Brackley team: “Yes, without a doubt, because it is not the driver who wears out the tires by pushing, but the car, which does not offer the driver enough traction from the rear wheels. So we have to sort that out on this trip.” He later said in the German press that “we’re a bit lost, we don’t know exactly where we are at the moment”.

However, there is something deeper. Wolff said the W14 experienced a “strange loss of lift” on the second day of testing, which the team still can’t explain. Rumor has it in the paddock that the W14’s new floor is incapable of consistently generating the required downforce, so it behaves differently with every change in its height from the ground.

Russell said the team is looking deeply into the data to find answers: “Although we have not completed our full program, we have discovered some interesting facts in the data. This is positive and we will analyze them in the evening to find the time [στο γύρο] that we miss. We have yet to unlock what W14 has to offer and everyone is working hard to achieve that and get the most out of the final day of testing.” added the Brit.

However, Russell conceded that expecting Mercedes to match the pace of the Red Bull RB19 at the first race of the year in a week (March 3-5) in Bahrain is a bit optimistic: “I believe that over time we will have a car capable of this fight. It would be a bit of a stretch to say that we will have it in Bahrain.

Red Bull looks very strong, very stable and obviously Max [Φερστάπεν] it works very well. But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be at this level at some point during the year. And we’ve seen the power of Mercedes at the pace of development many times [του μονοθεσίου]»concluded the 25-year-old Mercedes driver.

Speaking about the competition, Wolff added that Red Bull and Ferrari “They’re fast and that’s no surprise. It’s hard to judge, everyone is playing with fuel loads and hiding their engine settings. And we’re still hiding a bit. We have to wait for the end of testing and the fitting of the soft tires.” concluded the Austrian.