Lewis Hamilton returned to the track in Bahrain this morning with a heavily upgraded and potentially controversial Mercedes for the final pre-season test before next weekend’s opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
Hamilton was fifth fastest in the morning session of the first of three days of action as he completed 62 laps, but it was his car which proved the talking point with its new mini sidepods and fins running along the cockpit.
Ross Brawn, Formula 1’s managing director, hinted that a rules row might be on the verge of breaking out over Mercedes’ interpretation of the new regulations.
Speaking this morning, he said: “There are some very extreme interpretations of the regulations which could lead to a lot of debate. We did not anticipate the Mercedes concept.”
There were reports in the German press that Red Bull team principal Christian Horner had deemed the Mercedes approach “a step too far”. He reportedly said: “That does not correspond to the spirit of the regulation. For us, these wings are illegal”.
But Red Bull later insisted that “we have made no official comment regarding Mercedes’ car and will not be doing so”.
Either way, the sport looks set for more controversy over the rule interpretations by Mercedes and a car transformed from the previous shakedown test in Barcelona just 10 days before the first grand prix of the season.
Mercedes are the only team to have taken such an approach with their sidepods, aimed at reducing drag on the car but also maximising airflow to the new-for-2022 car floors.
Hamilton’s car and those of his F1 rivals were still porpoising during the session although to a lesser degree than in Spain. The effect is a result of the new-shaped floors and the air pressure around them getting disrupted as the downforce increases, an issue not anticipated by any of the teams during their wind-tunnel testing.
Hamilton, meanwhile, is set to feature in a new documentary on Apple TV+ by the producers of Netflix series Drive to Survive and the Senna film.
While Hamilton’s Mercedes again looked both reliable and quick on day one of the Bahrain test, it was Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc who set the early pace.
There were nine drivers in action on the grid in total with Haas’ difficult build-up to the season further hampered, a late delivery of freight meaning they were not able to run until the afternoon at the earliest.
The team had already replaced Russia’s Nikita Mazepin with former driver Kevin Magnussen, while the sponsorship brought by Mazepin’s father, Dmitry, a close friend of Vladimir Putin, has also ended.
Sebastian Vettel made a notable gesture towards the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by wearing an all-white helmet at the wheel of his Aston Martin with the words ‘No War’ and the ‘O’ in the shape of a flower in the blue and yellow colours of Ukraine’s flag.
