Mercedes take encouragement from “much calmer” W14 F1 car but too early to know competitiveness
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff confirmed his team were in a much happier place with their modified W14 ch♓allenger after experiencing “no bouncing” during the opening day of prဣe-season testing at Sakhir.
The Silver Arrows saw their eight-year streak of constructors’ titles come to an end last year after their W13 was plagued by unexpected and excessive 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:porpoising.
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But twelve months on from a troubled test in Bahrain, Mercedes enjoyed faultless running as 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Lewis Hamilton and168澳洲5最新开奖结果: George Russell racked up 152 laps between them.
“We’ve had a solid start to testing,” said ꦏMercedes trackꦏside engineering director Andrew Shovlin.
“The car has run faultlessly from start to finish and that has allowed us to complete an ambitious programme for day one.&n🌄bsp;
"It always takes a few days to understand a new car, but we've got a reasonable han๊dle on where we🗹 want to improve the balance.
“It was encouraging t𓃲hat it's a much ca🧜lmer, more stable platform to work with than the W13.
“The performance picture is always blurred after the first day so it's impossible to𒁏 say where we stand, but we've already identified several key areas where we can find some performa⛄nce.
“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.
“The next two days are going to be just as packed as today as we'r💯e squeezing every bit of lear🔴ning we can into the programme.
“Hopefully the 🌳car continues to run like clockwork, and we can make the most of the remaining track time.”
After finishing sixth and trailing Red Bull’s 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Max Verstappen by over six-tenths, Hamilto♐n admitted it is too early to know where Mercedes stand in the 2023 pecking order. &nbs𒁏p;
"We go🧜t through our programme and have gathered lots of data,” the seven-time world champion said.
“꧃We also had good reliabi😼lity 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 w✃e are in the order, but we'll get a better feeling in the days 💟to come.”
Russell, who ended up ninth-quickest after taking part in the morning session, echoed𝔉 his teammate’s assessment, adding:🦋 “It was great to be back out in the car and get a first real experience of the W14.
“It is still too early to say where our performance levels are relative to the competi𝐆tion, but we had a clean day and learned a lot.
“There are plenty of positives to tak✱e away and we can focus on maximising the potential of the car 💟in the coming days.”
Lewis regularly attends Grands Prix for wuqian0821.com around the world. Often reporting on the🐟 action from🅘 the ground, Lewis tells the stories of the people who matter in the sport.
