Mercedes after opening day: 'It's impossible to say where we stand'

A year ago, Mercedes knew it straight away: the car was not great, and it would be a very tough season. No doubt the German team looked ahead to the first test day in 2023 with some excitement: will it be good or bad this season?

According to Andrew Shovlin, Mercedes' technical man, it was a solid opening day of testing, he revealed in a press release from his team. "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."

Great experience

During the morning session, George Russell drove the Mercedes. "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 competition, but we had a clean day and learned a lot. There are plenty of positives to take away and we can focus on maximizing the potential of the car in the coming days."

Teammate Lewis Hamilton came into action after the midday break: "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 program and have gathered lots of data. 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."