Mercedes' start to the 2023 season has been thrown into turmoil by a costly hydraulic failure on Friday that limited George Russell to just 26 laps on track during the second day of pre-season testing in Bahrain.
The failure caused the W14 to stop on track, triggering a red flag while it was recovered by the track marshals. It was only the second stoppage of the test so far, after an electrical problem hit Aston Martin early on Thursday.
Russell was left watching on as his car was picked up on a low-loader and returned to pit lane. It wasn't possible to complete repairs in the remaining time available, meaning it was an early finish for the team.
"Unfortunately we had an hydraulic issue this afternoon which cost us some running," Russell confirmed.
"We've not had a strong second day," admitted Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin. "Stopping on track with a reliability issue wasn't great." And the team's problems didn't stop there.
"We've struggled to get the car balanced well across the changing conditions," Shovlin said. "We've got some investigations going on to understand why this has been such a challenge today when yesterday it was fairly straight forward.
"That work will continue into the night and no doubt we'll understand more come the morning," he added. "It will be interesting tomorrow to see if we can understand the drop in performance and mitigate the lost track time."
Despite the setbacks, Russell was determined to look for the silver lining in the day's activities.
"Even though we didn't complete our full programme, we uncovered some interesting things in the data throughout the day," he said. "That's a positive, and we will analyse these overnight with the aim of finding lap time.
"We haven't unlocked everything yet in the W14 and everyone is working hard to do so and maximise our final day of testing tomorrow."
Even so, Russell admitted that things weren't looking good for the team heading into next week's first Grand Prix race of 2023.
"Are we going to have that next weekend in Bahrain? I think may be a bit of a stretch," he told the media. [Red Bull] look very strong, they look very stable, the car’s looking really strong and obviously, Max performing really well.
"I think realistically it will be a stretch for next week," he said. “But there’s no reason why eventually we can’t get there at some point this year ... Definitely the belief is there."
Earlier in the day, Lewis Hamilton had been in the car for the morning session and completed 72 laps despite an incident where part of the car's underfloor appeared to fly off, leading to investigations and duct tape repairs in the garage.
But despite the extra time in the car, Hamilton was actually three tenths slower than Russell in the final timings. The seven-time world champion didn't sound very happy with things so far.
"It was a difficult morning," he said, suggesting that the new Mercedes was struggling in high heat conditions. "The hot temperatures made it challenging with the tyres overheating, as we often see here in Bahrain.
"We got through our run plan though and it was good to get that mileage in.
"Everyone is working incredibly hard, staying focused, and we're discovering everything we can about the W14. We've got lots of work planned for the final day of pre-season testing tomorrow."
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