Mercedes in the dark after Russell issues: 'We don't know where we stand'

The Formula 1 winter test in Bahrain is so far not going according to plan for Mercedes. On the second day of testing, George Russell was forced to pull his W14 over due to a hydraulic problem, after which the session was over for the team. Toto Wolff and Andrew Shovlin admit that Mercedes does not know where it stands at the moment.

Technical problems made Mercedes the least productive F1 team of the day. Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin acknowledges that the second day of testing was far from ideal for his team. "We've not had a strong second day; stopping on track with a reliability issue wasn't great and we have struggled to get the car balanced well across the changing conditions," he said in a Mercedes press release.

Before Russell's stoppage, the German racetrack also did not have a top day. "We have struggled to get the car balanced well across the changing conditions," Shovlin continued. "We've got some investigations going on to understand why this has been such a challenge today when yesterday it was fairly straight forward."

After working through the night, Mercedes will know more on Saturday morning, according to the Briton. "It will be interesting tomorrow to see if we can understand the drop in performance and mitigate the lost track time," Shovlin said.

In addition to Russell's hydraulic problem, Mercedes also suffered from a loss of downforce on the front axle, according to Auto, Motor und Sport reported. The cause could not yet be identified and the team is even said to have gone into emergency consultations. Toto Wolff hopes there will be an explanation on Saturday morning, but does not sound very positive yet. "We're a bit lost, as we don't know where we stand right now," said the Mercedes team boss.