Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says that his squad is “relishing” the challenge posed by the 2023 Formula 1 season.
Mercedes enters the upcoming campaign on the back of a turbulent 2022 campaign, as it struggled to get up to speed amid the introduction of new technical regulations.
Its form toward the end of the season saw it take a grand prix win in Brazil, and its pre-season test appeared to see it rid of the porpoising issue that plagued it during the opening races last year.
However, the paddock consensus is that Red Bull is still the team to beat following its dominant charge to both titles in Bahrain.
Mercedes was also hit with reliability concerns on the second day of testing last week, but still managed to discover key elements of the W14 car.
“We didn’t have the smoothest winter test in Bahrain,” Wolff 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.”
Wolff added that Mercedes is operating under the assumption that it is playing catch-up – but asserts that the team is up to the challenge.
“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,” he said.
“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.”
