LOOKING AHEAD to the opening round of the 2023 Formula One season in Bahrain Team Principal & CEO of the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, Toto Wolff, said the teams preparatory work in the region wasn’t the greatest but they did learn a few things.
As unique a circuit as it gets in the world of Formula 1, located in the middle of the desert, on what was formerly a camel farm, the Bahrain International Circuit, owing to the abrasiveness of the track, which is one of the roughest of the season, tyre degradation tends to be amongst the highest seen at any race across the calendar.
One of the most challenging corners on the track is Turn 10. It’s long, combined corner entry that tightens before dropping away at the apex.
Drivers must apply the brakes whilst completing the wide corner arc of Turn 9; this causes the front-left tyre to go light and increases the risk of a lock-up.
Focus for car set-up is on optimising low and medium-speed corner performance. Mechanical grip is crucial out of the slower corners, whilst the high-speed sections are easily taken flat-out.
Speaking ahead of this wekends race, Wolff said the team were nowhere near optimum level but he was excited by the prospects and they would be going ‘flat out’.
“We didn’t have the smoothest winter test in Bahrain,” he said.
“We had some reliability problems and struggled with the car set-up on day two.
“But the key objective was to learn about the car, and we did lots of learning. We made good progress on the final day, which gave us directions to work on in the short period between the test and this weekend’s race.
“It’s always hard to have a clear picture of competitiveness at pre-season testing – and even more so with only three days of data available. Our expectations were that we would likely be playing catch-up to the front, based on how last year ended.
“That seems to be the case so far but we will only know for sure after this weekend. Nevertheless, we are confident we have got a car we can work with and are in a stronger position than 12 months ago.
“More importantly, we are relishing the challenge. This championship will be fought over 23 race weekends, and each one will give us an opportunity to improve.
“The start of a new season is always exciting, whether you’ve been working in this sport for a few decades, years or weeks. So much hard work has gone into the W14 over the winter and the anticipation to be get racing has kept on building.
“We will be going flat out this weekend – and are determined to keep that going to the final lap in Abu Dhabi.”
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