Mercedes are concerned about the ‘limited’ F1 pre-season testing time

Mercedes are worried that three days of testing won't be enough to figure out any potential issues with the W14, particularly the 'absolute reliability'.

Mercedes are concerned about the ‘limited’ F1 pre-season testing time

Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes W14

Mercedes had a rather disappointing season in 2022. Though they gave Ferrari a run for their money in the second half of the season, the Silver Arrows could only finish third. Red Bull were on top almost the entire year. Ferrari had some good times in the first half of the season, despite some disasters also happening. In Bahrain, Mercedes, who had won all the previous 8 constructors’ championships, were quite easily third-best in performance.

For them, there was one group of particular issues that seemed to trouble them the most. Bouncing and porpoising. Ferrari also had porpoising, but for them, it didn’t seem to have much effect on their performance. The W13, though, looked like a much better car after the issue was fixed. The Silver Arrows were often were Red Bull’s closest competition in the second half of the season. This season, with the rule changes to combat porpoising, it should be better; at least more comfortable.

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But it could still be present. The first real action the W14 will get will be in pre-season testing in Bahrain, which kicks off in a few days. Last year, there were two tests. After the first test in Barcelona, the team already knew about the porpoising – but didn’t know that it was going to be an issue. It can be an issue again this year, which means the team must eliminate it as soon as possible, as well as any other issues that may come up.

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But there will be only one test this year, which Mercedes’ technical director, Mike Elliott does not think will be enough. As per Crash.net, he said: “We never really got on top of the car balance last year. All the normal work we do at the beginning of the season didn’t happen because of the problems we were trying to rectify. With only three days of testing this year, that has two big impacts.”

Read More: Toto Wolff points out how Mercedes may have an advantage over F1 top dogs Red Bull in 2023

How ‘only three days of [pre-season F1] testing’ will impact Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes W14, during the Silverstone shakedown
Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes W14, during the Silverstone shakedown

The Mercedes W13 was uber-reliable last year, though often in the first half of the season, not quick. Despite this, they were able to snatch points when Red Bull or Ferrari had a failure. This kept them in the fight despite a rather uncompetitive package. Figuring out reliability will take some time, and three days may not be enough. On this, Mike Elliott said: “The first is in reliability. If we are not reliable in the test, then we will have very limited mileage to learn.”

On the reliability side, Elliott also added: “We also won’t be able to measure the car’s absolute reliability too much, because over three days you are not going to get huge amounts of running. These cars are now so reliable that you need more mileage than three days to really start seeing some of the issues.”

The second big impact, according to him, is in the ‘department’ of efficiency. The Mercedes’ F1 technical director explained: “The second big impact is that we’ve got to use our limited time as efficiently as possible. We’ve got to learn as much as we can, to work out how to get the most performance out of the car and what we can learn to feed into the next developments.”

The team have apparently had a pretty smooth shakedown, with Lewis Hamilton calling the car ‘comfortable’. That is a good sign, but it will really be in pre-season testing where they will get a better indication of where they stand, relative to the rest of the grid. But pre-season testing is often deceptive, and fans will only get a real benchmark of the W14’s performance in the qualifying session in Bahrain.

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