Mercedes had “no bouncing” with W14 during first 69 laps of test

The bouncing problem which severely compromised Mercedes’ start to last season has not recurred so far with the team’s new car.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff told media including RaceFans George Russell was “generally happy with the car” after covering 69 laps with it at the Bahrain International Circuit today.

“It seems to be balanced in the right way,” said Wolff. “There’s no bouncing, which is good news, apart from that big bump at the end of the straight.”

The team have “a good starting point” after the first half-day of running in the sole, three-day test before the championship begins next week.

“We’re gathering a lot of data because that was important to correlate obviously after last year, and trying different things,” said Wolff. “So a productive first morning.”

Bahrain hosted the second of two pre-season tests last year. Mercedes already “knew that we were in trouble” by that point, said Wolff. “The car was just bouncing around and we really weren’t able to drive it correctly.

“So that is very different. I think we have a solid base now to work from and try to optimise the car, which we haven’t done yet. It’s really just finding out are there any areas that could be a real performance hindrance like last year with the bouncing. We’ve just got to work through the programme.”

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Mercedes largely eliminated their porpoising problem during the course of 2022, but the performance of their car remained compromised by the changes they made to cope with it.

Wolff admitted they had detected “a little bit of movement in turn 12,” this morning. However he said it was “not anywhere close to the degree that we had last year” and is “not performance-limiting.”

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said Max Verstappen had reported parts of the Bahrain circuit have become bumpier. His opposite number at Ferrari, Frederic Vasseur, concurred.

“It’s not at all as it was one year ago with the car bouncing like a kangaroo. Today we have on some part of the track before turn one, turn 12, it’s a bit more bumpy than it was before, but it’s a different issue.”