Mercedes report no trouble on day 1 of Bahrain pre-season testing - “The car has run faultlessly from start to finish”

Mercedes were positive after a productive first day of the pre-season test. The two drivers put together strong respective runs and Andrew Shovlin was happy to report that the car ran faultlessly from start to finish.

The German team is coming off its worst F1 season in a decade. The team finished third in the 2022 F1 season in the championship, its worst result since the 2012 F1 season.

Speaking on the first day of the pre-season test, Mercedes personnel Andrew Shovlin was buoyant on the first day of running and was quoted by the team's official website:

"We’ve had a solid start to testing. The car has run faultlessly from start to finish and that has allowed us to complete an ambitious programme for day one. It always takes a few days to understand a new car, but we’ve got a reasonable handle on where we want to improve the balance. It was encouraging that it’s a much calmer, more stable platform to work with than the W13."

He added:

"The performance picture is always blurred after the first day so it’s impossible to say where we stand, but we’ve already identified several key areas where we can find some performance. We’ll work on the assumption that we’re playing catch up and need to pull out all the stops to find performance ahead of the first race here in one week’s time."

He also noted:

"The next two days are going to be just as packed as today as we’re squeezing every bit of learning we can into the programme. Hopefully the car continues to run like clockwork, and we can make the most of the remaining track time."

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Mercedes world champion driver happy with the first day of running

Lewis Hamilton was happy on the first day of running. The Mercedes driver put together the 6th fastest time inofhe day and gathered decent mileage along the way. He said:

"It's good to be back in the car here in Bahrain. It was a nice, cool afternoon weather-wise, though windy. We got through our programme and have gathered lots of data."

He added:

"We also had good reliability which contributed to our strong mileage total; that is down to the amazing work done back at Brackley and Brixworth. We’ve got to keep pushing, focus on ourselves, and stay focused. It’s difficult to know where we are in the order, but we’ll get a better feeling in the days to come."

Mercedes will try to ramp things up a bit in the coming days as the team tries to find the limits of the car as compared to Ferrari and Red Bull.