Mercedes sandbagging early? The Silver Arrows did not suffer from an ignition problem on launch day: Reports

New reports suggest that the Mercedes W14 did not suffer from an ignition problem on launch day, as was reported by multiple news outlets.

The Silver Arrows revealed their brand new 2023 challenger and immediately took it to track ahead of pre-season testing in Bahrain.

The W14 suffered from a fuel supply-related installation problem on the day of its launch, with engineers rectifying the issue with considerable ease. Luckily for the team and fans, it does not seem like the car has any major ignition issues. However, we will only know details of the same at the pre-season test in Bahrain later this week. A Mercedes member said about the problem:

"On Wednesday we had a demo day just to gather basic information about the W14 and verify that the installation had gone right. We didn't shoot. It may be that everything is not 100% fine on the first day of a new car, problems can always arise. However, there were no problems of missed ignition, as reported on the web, but more."

The Anglo-German team have chosen to stick with their 'zero-pod' design from last year, despite having not been competitive for most of the season. It remains to be seen how this concept holds up against their rivals.

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Mercedes boss claims the W13 had more performance to unlock

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff claims the team's 2022 challenger, the W13, still had some pace left to unlock. The W13 began to perform well at the end of the 2022 season after the F1 team managed to understand the porpoising issues that plagued them in the first half of the season.

The Austrian is confident in his team's 'zero-pod' aerodynamic philosophy and claims that it was not the singular cause of all their woes in 2022. The team managed to win only one race all season long, with George Russell taking his maiden win at the 2022 Brazilian GP.

Speaking to the media, Toto Wolff said about the W13:

“Our sidepod design is not something that we believe was fundamentally the reason why we didn’t perform. There is no holy cows in our concept, it’s not that we don’t want to follow anybody’s ideas, we kept with the narrow sidepod as it is. But it’s not the core fundamental performance part as we judge.”

The Mercedes boss added:

“W13 certainly had performance which we never were able to unlock and put all its downforce on the ground."

If the team is able to build a car capable of fighting for the title this year, we might see a three or four-way battle for the crown later in 2023. However, we will only get a fair picture of the way things stand for the Silver Arrows after the pre-season test in Bahrain.