Mercedes director explains what were the key learnings from the 2023 F1 Bahrain GP

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin mentioned stated despite having a tough start to the season at the F1 Bahrain Grand Prix, the team did learn a few key things about the W14.

The German team looked competitive after qualifying on Saturday (4 March) despite being half a second behind pole-sitter Max Verstappen. However, during the race, they slipped back in the pecking order and finished behind Aston Martin and Ferrari in terms of true race pace.

While doing a post-race debrief on YouTube, the Mercedes engineer revealed that both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell experienced a lot of tire degradation. He said:

"So the gap in qualifying was quite large, we were over half a second to the front. In the race, that was even bigger though and that was compounded by the fact that when you get the tire degradation, you get a bit more sliding and the tires run hotter and you find it very difficult to keep them under any control."

"So there's a lot we need to understand but the key things are getting on top of the long-run degradation. Last year, it was a strong point for us, clearly, we've got something that is not in the right place that we need to work on. But the other one is ultimately the performance gap to the front, so the raw pace of the car is ultimately not good enough."

“We are going to look at bigger departures and more radical changes" - Mercedes' Andrew Shovlin

Andrew Shovlin also commented on Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff's claims that the team needed to make radical changes to the W14's concept. He said:

“People have tended to use the word concept when they mean the side pod design and Toto had said recently that we are looking at a revision that is going to come along in the next few races anyway. Given the gap to the front, of course, we are going to look at bigger departures and more radical changes."

“But those changes take time to turn into a faster solution in the wind tunnel – you can’t do them overnight. There is quite a lot of development that you’ve got to do around any sort of the big change in geometry in that area."

Mercedes really need to act fast as the gap to the leaders, Red Bull, is quite big at the moment. Without improvements in the upcoming races, they might not be in the title race this season.