Not an easy start for the Mercedes. The Brackley team he certainly didn't steal the show during these first two days of testing in Bahrain. In the yesterday, Hamilton snatched sixth position while Russell didn't go beyond ninth place. In the morning, the seven-times world champion returned to action, without however convincing in particular in the long run.
Wolff: "To date we are not from the world championship"
Still increasing the question marks on the new one W14, it is precisely the Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, who spoke exclusively to the microphones of Sky. Here are his words.
Toto, how are these tests going?
“Yesterday the car was quite good. Today however, also considering the heat, it does not seem to be very balanced. Let's bring some stuff and see how it goes, but for now I can tell you that this car isn't nice to drive."
Compared to W13, are you more confident about this W14?
“Yes, because we understood well what happened last year. We have a more solid foundation: the car doesn't jump to start, but of course that's not enough. Let's see how we go in the afternoon."
Is the focus also on the work that others are doing?
"Yes sure. Red Bull and Ferrari are very fast, a bit like last year. The level with these two teams is really very high."
But do you expect closer gaps?
“It must be our goal. We have everything as a team to be able to do it and we will try.”
You have taken the same path as the W13, but is it true that there is another W14?
“Conceptually, we remained the same as last year. We have some components that we will bring later in the season”.
Do you feel engaged for the world championship?
"The goal must be this, even if based on what we see today I don't think we could do it."
On the budget cap chapter, we will be able to have
“Having inflation of another team for a second season would be very serious. We are very conservative, so we will never get over it. However, I hope that last season's spending data can come out sooner."
Coming to Lewis… are you already talking about the renewal?
"We are talking, even if at the moment it is more important to focus our attention on the car, but there are no major problems with the renewal".
