Mercedes has shown signs of encouragement in the W14 after completing the first day of Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain. George Russell reported "no bouncing" according to Toto Wolff upon completing the first 69 laps in the morning with the ninth quickest time, while Lewis Hamilton going on to complete 83 laps and set the sixth quickest time in the afternoon. Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin, says the car is a "much calmer" and "more stable platform" to work from compared to the W13 which was often tricky to get into the right setup window. "We've had a solid start to testing. The car has run faultlessly from start to finish and that has allowed us to complete an ambitious programme for day one," said Shovlin. "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. It was encouraging that it's a much calmer, more stable platform to work with than the W13."
Mercedes identified 'several key areas' of where to find performance
Russell and Hamilton completed a combined total of 152 laps without any major issues , however it was five short of the distance covered by Max Verstappen - who topped the day - on his own. Shovlin says the team has already identified "several key areas" they need to work on to find extra performance over the next couple of days. He added: "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. "The next two days are going to be just as packed as today as we're squeezing every bit of learning we can into the programme. Hopefully the car continues to run like clockwork, and we can make the most of the remaining track time."
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