Mercedes Proving Very Reliable After Successful Second Day

Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team completed a successful second day of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, with both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell getting behind the wheel of the W13.

It was Russell who completed the morning session with Hamilton getting into the car in the afternoon. The morning saw Russell work on long-run performance of the W13, whereas Hamilton worked through various setups in the afternoon. Russell completed 67 laps, twenty more than Hamilton managed. As well as the incredibly innovative no sidepod-sidepods, the W13 is appearing to be incredibly reliable.

Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin, recognises that the apparent strong reliability of the W13, has helped the team work through their daily programmes successfully.

“A packed day with a mix of work on low and high fuel as we continue to learn about the car and tyres. We’re exploring a range of setup options to try and improve the bouncing – we have some directions that are able to improve this but finding the right balance between the bouncing and performance is clearly the challenge.

“We’ve got a similar programme planned for tomorrow, but Lewis will do the higher fuel work and George the low fuel. We still have lots of work ahead of us but the car has been running reliably which has helped us get good mileage in and run our programme.”