Mercedes patch up Lewis Hamilton’s broken car with TAPE on disastrous second day of F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain
MERCEDES mechanics were forced to patch up Lewis Hamilton’s car with tape on a disastrous second day of testing for the team.
Formula One teams have been in Bahrain to put their cars around a few laps of the Sakhir circuit ahead of the first race of the season next weekend.
And while Mercedes were left encouraged by the first day of pre-season, day two has proven to be full of challenges.
Friday’s morning session saw Hamilton‘s car requiring tape after a piece of the floor flew off.
The seven-times driver’s champion was flying around the track when a small piece chunk of bodywork visibly detached itself from the W14.
Things got worse in the afternoon when George Russell was forced to abandon the car after it suffered a hydraulics failure.
The Brit climbed out of the failing car as officials threw a red flag to halt the session.
While lap times are not seen as important during testing, there may have been some concern at Hamilton and Russell registering times that were only 15th and 13th fastest respectively out of the 20 drivers.
More alarmingly, the pair managed only 98 laps between them on day 2, at least 10 fewer than any other team.
Mercedes torrid day comes after Russell played down the Brackley-based team’s chances of winning the opening race next week.
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But team principal Toto Wolff had been more bullish yesterday and claimed the mood in Mercedes was “very different” compared to a year ago.
He added: “You need to provide a good car for a driver who has the ambition to win races and championships, and we have that.
“We have a solid base and will try to optimise the car, which we have not done yet. Today has been about finding if there are any areas that could be a real hindrance, such as bouncing.”
With Max Verstappen recording the fastest time on day one, Zhou Guanyu was the surprise leader of the field today with his Alfa Romeo setting the quickest time from the eight hours of running.