Mercedes was still mainly working on solution for porpoising during FP1

It was clear to see on the footage of the first free practice session of the Bahrain Grand Prix, but Mercedes itself indicates that it was not concerned with the fastest times this session. The team is still looking for a solution to the porpoising problem.

First, we got a good look at how George Russell's W13 was bumping violently again on the straight of the Bahrain International Circuit. The sparks were flying and it was thought that the unidentifiable debris lying beside the track at the end of the session could well be from the Mercedes. Onboard at Lewis Hamilton's W13, you could also hear the floor or the front wing scraping hard across the asphalt. It didn't look good and the times were not good either because of it.

Mercedes chief Andrew Shovlin told Sky Sports, then, that the team was mainly concerned with finding a solution to the problems this afternoon. "It's a continuation of the testing [looking for a solution to the porpoising, ed.]. We played with the ride height of the car this session. If we can see who is fast and we see that Red Bull or Ferrari is faster then we will start looking at their solutions, but for now, we are focusing on our own solution."

Shovlin summed up his argument by saying that the package they have now does not bring the performance they expected. "The updates have not delivered everything we expected," he said. Because of the problems, Mercedes also wasn't able to run the session exactly the way they wanted. Ideally, they wanted to do the same as the competitors, but the conditions made it easier to drive on the softest tire instead of the medium tire.