Toto Wolff believes Mercedes have delivered a car ready to join the fight for the Formula One world championship this season as it hit the track for the first test in Bahrain.
The Mercedes team principal expressed his confidence that after an extremely disappointing season last year, this time the team had built a solid enough platform with their car to offer seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton a chance to compete for his eighth title. Last year Mercedes were well off the pace of Red Bull and Ferrari, their car suffering extensively from porpoising and then later from a separate bouncing issue severely affecting its performance. However, on the first day of testing at the Sakhir circuit Wolff was optimistic that the car was a world away from last year’s recalcitrant ride.
“You need to provide a good car for a driver that has the ambition to win races and championships and we have that,” he said. “We want to win. At this stage last year, we knew we were in trouble because the car was bouncing around and we were not able to drive it correctly. Today, it is very different. The car seems to be balanced in the right way. There is no bouncing which is good news. It is a good starting point.”
The world champion, Max Verstappen, topped the timesheets for Red Bull in the morning session, continuing the form he and the team displayed on a dominant run to both titles last year. In the afternoon Verstappen was on top once more, in front of the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in third and Hamilton in sixth.
With only three days of testing this year before the first round next weekend, the teams focused on putting in the miles to shake down their cars rather than lap time.
Wolff said Hamilton’s teammate George Russell was happy with the car and its balance, a key area which last year made its performance unpredictable from track to track, another issue they appear to have addressed. “I think we have a solid base now to work from and try to optimise the car, which we haven’t done yet,” said Wolff.
For Hamilton this is the start he wanted too. Now entering his 17th year in the sport 2022 was his first season without scoring a single win and in which he was sixth, his lowest finishing position since his debut in 2007.
“It’s good to be back in the car here in Bahrain,” Hamilton said. “We’ve got to keep pushing, focus on ourselves and stay focused. It’s difficult to know where we are in the order, but we’ll get a better feeling in the days to come.”
On Thursday F1 also announced the calendar for the inaugural season of its all-female F1 Academy series. The championship, created and backed by the sport’s owners, is intended to help nurture and develop young female talent in racing with a view to them advancing into F1, which has not had a woman driver since Lella Lombardi participated in the Austrian Grand Prix in 1976.
Austria (Spielberg) 8-29 April
Spain (Valencia) 5-7 May
Spain (Barcelona) 19-21 May
Netherlands (Zandvoort) 23-25 June
Italy (Monza) 7-9 July
France (Le Castellet) 29-30 July
United States (Austin) 20-22 October
The season will consist of seven rounds each hosting three races, with the final meeting taking place over the weekend of the US GP at the Circuit of the Americas in October.
Six drivers have been confirmed so far, including Britain’s Jessica Edgar and Abbi Pulling, who will race in teams with experience of running young drivers from the F2 and F3 field. Pulling was formerly in the all-female W Series, the future of which remains in doubt after it had to end its championship early last season due to a financial shortfall and has yet to issue any confirmation it will return this year.
