An exploratory day for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team on day one of the Bahrain pre-season test

Lewis was behind the wheel of the W13 for this morning’s session in Bahrain as the team took its first steps with a significant upgrade introduced since testing in Barcelona two week ago. Lewis banked valuable learning on the C2 and C3 compounds, running early on with a rake to gather aero data on the new package.

George followed in the afternoon session under the floodlights in Sakhir, working through a detailed test programme to better understand the balance and drivability of the new-look W13. Both drivers broke through the 60-lap mark to harvest precious data as the learning race continues.

Andrew Shovlin

Compared to Barcelona it's been harder to get the car well-balanced around the lap here. We do seem to have made a bit of progress through the day but it's always difficult to judge accurately here as the falling temperature tends to flatter everything you do later in the day. We've got quite a lot of work still to do regarding validation of the update kit and will continue the data collection programme over the next few days so it's a bit early to say whether everything is working as expected. There is certainly more to find in getting the balance right between slow and high-speed corners, and there's also a bit too much tyre overheating. So, plenty to keep us busy for the next two days but we are on a steep learning curve with the new car and tyres - we'll analyse what we have from today and hopefully make a step forward for tomorrow.