George Russell admits that Mercedes' pace is currently "just not there" but insists the Brackley squad is "throwing everything at it" to improve its car's performance.
Since the start of pre-season testing, Mercedes' W13 has been heavily impacted by a chronic porpoising issue and wild understeer.
Although the team has made progress on both fronts, the new Sil Arrows' characteristics continue to weigh on its performance.
Initially downplayed by Mercedes' rivals, the German outfit's worries proved to be well founded after the first day of practice in Bahrain.
"It’s all about lap time, and we’re certainly not where we want to be," said Russell who concluded his day P4 in the pecking order, 0.593s adrift of pacesetter Max Verstappen.
"I think we’ve made a bit of progress solving some issues, but the pace just is not there at all at the moment so we need to really go over the data tonight to understand why we’re both struggling a little bit with the car.
"And we’re a long way off the pace off Red Bull, Ferrari – even the likes of AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo are seemingly on our pace or even quicker.
"We were consistently over a second slower than where our rivals are, so I know I need to look into the data a bit further. Maybe there’s a reason for it.
"But from our side, we’re definitely not overly happy with the car right now and we’ve got some work to do."
Russell said the Mercedes team and all its crews back at Brackley and Brixworth are working full steam ahead to solve its car's issues and improve its pace. But the Briton reckons it's going to take time.
"We are truly throwing everything at [the car] at the moment to try and unlock the potential, which we think is there, but we’re just really struggling to tap into that at the moment," he said.
"And everything we try is maybe one step forwards, two steps back, and there’s always a bit of a limitation – so it’s going to take time.
"I think we hoped that we could’ve solved it for this weekend, but how things stand for the moment, we aren’t in the fight and we’ve got some work to do."
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