Toto Wolff had admitted he is a “bit worried” after claiming Mercedes should have been “two seconds” quicker than the pack during F1 pre-season testing.
On Wednesday and Thursday of the three-day test, conditions were cold in Bahrain, with rain wiping out an hour of running on Thursday morning.
Such cold conditions were a strength of Mercedes in 2024, with George Russell claiming pole in the wet in Canada before going onto dominate the Las Vegas Grand Prix in the frigid conditions of the Nevada desert.
Despite Russell going on to set the fastest time of Friday’s running, Mercedes did not enjoy as big a gap in the colder running as it had in 2024, something that Wolff observed.
“Well, I am a bit worried at the moment because these should be conditions where we should be two seconds quicker,” Wolff told media including RacingNews365 on Thursday – the day interrupted by rain.
“It was the only highlight of last year in terms of performance, in Las Vegas, [but] we are not 1740845335.
“So we’ve either remedied the problem and we have more balance through all the climate conditions, but we have had a laugh about it, whether we’ve lost some of our USP.
“Sometimes we’ve picked junctions that have gone in the wrong directions, and [on Wednesday], we tried something in the afternoon that didn’t function, it wasn’t so good, but it is about a car that gives us more confidence.
“That was what we were missing last year. It was a bit unpredictable, but it seems to be a tiny step ahead, but we have no idea about fuel loads, you have no idea, and the conditions were not representative.”
