Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff says the Brackley squad needs to understand how it can extract more performance from its W13 in its current specification before bringing new parts.
The issues impacting Mercedes' new-generation Silver Arrow have been well chronicled, with porpoising, excessive understeer and too much drag seen by the team's engineers as the main sources of the car's troubles.
In Bahrain, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were able to remain in the mix in the opening stages of the race, but Mercedes' decision to go against the grain and opt for the hard tyre in their drivers' second stint led to the latter losing ground, although Hamilton eventually picked up a podium thanks to the late double DNF suffered by Red Bull.
Wolff said that Mercedes' inability to challenge the front-runners at Sakhir led to the team treating the race as full-scale test session.
©Mercedes
"In a way it was a new situation for all of us because we are somewhere in a no man's land between P3/P4 and P6," explained Wolff after Sunday's opening event.
"Therefore you can experiment more, and I think the experiment with the hard tyres was worth it.
Very different to all the other strategies of the front runners and obviously didn't work at all. So more mileage, more laps, more learning.
"I think we were competitive on the first few laps on the soft tyre and we were able to hold on, if not be faster, than some of the guys in front. But we had more deg," he added.
"Nevertheless, it was a good, useful test for us. We tried the hard tyre, which obviously wasn't great. We lost a second a lap and also on the medium, we weren't really able to extract performance so there's some really good learning.
"There's so many areas we just need to improve in order to climb back to race with the guys in front."
Wolff emphasized that Mercedes' approach to improving its new Silver Arrow is to first extract as much as it can from the car's current configuration.
"I think more than really bringing parts, it's understanding how we can unleash the performance that we believe to be in the car- or that we hope to be in the car," he said.
"Before throwing bits at it in terms of performance, this is where I would see it."
For now, Mercedes is tackling its issues one race at a time, and treating each race as a "singular event".
But Wolff recognized that having the third fastest car on the grid won't allow Mercedes to challenge for race wins.
"It's too early really to look at the championship as it stands," said the Austrian.
"If we look at the pecking order today, it seems very, very far, a very long shot, to even think about being in contention for any of the championships.
"But if I look at it as a single race weekend, we probably scored the maximum of points that we could have.
"We need to take it from there. Every single weekend counts and at the moment, it's singular events. Because realistically, when you're third on the road, you can't think about winning."
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