Formula One: Mercedes say new car ran like clockwork, no bouncing

MANAMA - Mercedes enjoyed a faultless first day of Formula One testing on Thursday with seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton hailing the team’s “amazing work” since their bouncing start to last season.

Team boss Toto Wolff also sounded positive about the campaign to come, contrasting the positive mood to the atmosphere 12 months ago.

“It (the car) seems to be balanced in the right way. There’s no bouncing, which is good news,” the Austrian told reporters at the Sakhir circuit ahead of the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix next week.

“I think we have a solid base now to work from and try to optimise the car.”

Mercedes finished third overall behind Red Bull and Ferrari in 2022, their run of eight successive constructors’ titles coming to an end as Red Bull swept both championships with Max Verstappen winning 15 of 22 races and sealing his second world crown.

Hamilton failed to win a race, the first time he had gone through a season without a victory in a record-breaking career that started in 2007.

“It’s good to be back in the car,” the Briton said. “It was a nice, cool afternoon weather-wise, though windy.

“We got through our programme 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.”

Hamilton produced the sixth fastest lap of the day, and teammate George Russell was ninth, but times meant little in pre-season testing as teams focused on mileage and ran on different fuel loads.

Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said it had been a solid start and the car had run faultlessly.

“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,” he added.

“It was encouraging that it’s a much calmer, more stable platform to work with than the W13.”

Shovlin also said the team were working on the assumption they were still playing catch-up with rivals who also had problem-free sessions.

“Hopefully, the car continues to run like clockwork, and we can make the most of the remaining track time,” he said.

Verstappen, meanwhile, set the pace on Thursday.

The Red Bull driver edged out two-time world champion Fernando Alonso in an Aston Martin with the two Ferraris of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc tucked in behind.

“We had a good day today, we completed a lot of laps which is what we wanted – almost three grands prix’s worth,” said Verstappen.

“It’s nice to see how the car has evolved from last year. The behaviour is a bit different because of the tyres but otherwise, we are happy.”

In 2022, Verstappen’s 15 race wins included nine of the last 11 as he swept to back-to-back world titles. His final points tally of 454 was comfortably 146 ahead of second-placed Leclerc.

New Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur said his drivers were also happy.

“The first feeling was good. The most important was to do mileage and we had no issue. We were able to do the run plan and everything is going well so far,” he said.

While testing seems positive for Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari so far, there were issues already for Aston Martin.

The red flags were waved after nine minutes on Thursday when Brazilian Felipe Drugovich, standing in for injured Canadian Lance Stroll, stopped his car on track with an electrical problem.

German driver Nico Hulkenberg started his comeback at Haas while Australian rookie Oscar Piastri did 52 laps for McLaren but propped up the timesheets.

“There is still a lot to learn and improvements to make but I think I’m getting there. It was good to get some laps on the board and everything felt pretty comfy,” said Piastri. REUTERS, AFP