© Steve Etherington for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.
Ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas talked about the post-testing development of the W12, while Toto Wolff teased an unexpected innovation.
There’s no doubt that Mercedes’ 2021 car – the W12 proved to be a handful in pre-season testing. Not only were there gearbox related technical difficulties, but the car was also hard to handle, which led to a few spins.
Mercedes has been hard at work since then to rectify the issues, so at the Thursday press conference Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas were asked to give the latest update on the W12.
“We struggled quite a bit for sure, but it was also pretty extreme conditions overall,” said Bottas of pre-season testing.
“It was really windy which makes it quite hard to understand the changes you’re making and it compromises the run.
“It makes it even harder to understand and to learn in those conditions. But yeah, the fact is we struggled with the car balance.
“We always want more performance than we have currently overall both from the car side and chassis and aero side, and from the humans in the team.
“The team has been really flat-out and understanding everything from the test and making sure that at least approaching this weekend we hopefully are going to start, in theory, in the best place with the setup and everything.
“It’s unknown how much we’ve recovered from testing and how much performance we gained by learning [after the test].
“That’s something we’re going to learn hopefully in practice and at the latest on Saturday and Sunday. But at least I know that the team has done everything we can in the short time.
“But the season is so long so there’s no reason to panic, we just need to work hard.”
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Hamilton confirmed that the team is still in the early stages of fully understanding the new car.
“We’ve tried to understand naturally, in terms of quantifying how big or small an issue we may or may not have,” the Briton explained.
“Everyone on the ground here, all the engineers and also the aerodynamicists – particularly back at the factory – have been working around the clock to rectify any normal things that happen with a new car and new regulation shifts.
“I’m fully confident that in the short space of time, that they’ve done the absolute best, but it’s going to be a continued hustle to get the car to be where we want it to be.”
Earlier in the day Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff gave an interview to Canal+, where he teased the team will be introducing an unexpected innovation.
“You haven’t even seen what we’re going to put on the car yet,” the Austrian said.
“Of course, there is room for innovation and that always made me happy. Every year we try to do something that is a little bit boxy.
“I’m not sure it makes a big difference in terms of the performance of the car.
“It’s beautiful if it works,” concluded Wolff.
Now, it’s unknown as of yet if Toto was serious or just playing with the media, but considering Mercedes is the team that shocked everyone with the introduction of DAS in 2020, anything is possible.
