Lewis Hamilton Admits Mercedes are “Not quite where they want to be.”

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team had a mixed three days of testing ahead of the seasoner opener at the Bahrain International Circuit in less than a week.

The German team suffered a large number of problems on Day Two of the three-day test, with George Russell getting limited running after an issue that saw him bring out a red flag mid-way through the afternoon session. Even the morning session saw Lewis Hamilton struggle with performance and grip throughout his runs, which is not what we’ve been expecting from a team that will be fighting to take back the Constructors Championship after Red Bull took it away from them last year for the first time in eight years.

Day Three saw a much better outcome for the team though, completing 148 laps and looking much more competitive in both the morning and the afternoon sessions. It was certainly a much more successful day for the team, who made extensive changes overnight and it clearly paid off with Russell doing well on a number of compounds and setting the, at the time, fastest lap on the C5 tyre, before Charles Leclerc went four-tenths quicker than the Brit. Hamilton got his place in the car in the afternoon session on Saturday and did lots of race simulation work on harder compounds before setting the fastest time of the session on the C5 compound, a time that would later drop below Sergio Pérez.

“It has been an interesting few days here in Bahrain,” said seven-time World Champion Hamilton. “There has been a lot of discovery and the whole team has approached it with the same mentality, working hard, not being complacent and staying focused.

“We’re not quite where we want to be but it’s a good platform to start from. We don’t know where we will be next week, but we will stay positive and continue to push to the maximum.“

“We had a much more positive day today [Saturday],” said a relatively pleased Russell. “We took a step forward and made progress with the issues we faced yesterday [Friday]. I believe we have improved the car over the course of testing and got the W14 in a much better window today. There is still plenty of work to do but we’re in better shape for next week with more to come.”

Russell admitted on the second day of testing that Mercedes, “haven’t unlocked everything yet in the W14” but while he assured the fans that “everyone is working hard to do so” and there is an added feeling of stepping into the unknown on the first weekend of racing in Bahrain, with no clear estimation of where all the teams are going to rank in the order.