Team boss Toto Wolff doesn't believe Mercedes' problematic Bahrain test was due to "complacency".
After sitting near the top of the distance charts in recent years, the Brackley-based team finished bottom in 2021, completing just 304 laps over the three days of running.
A Day 1 gearbox problem after just a single lap really got Mercedes' pre-season off on the wrong foot, and led some to wonder if the team made a mistake by moving their usual pre-test shakedown until the Tuesday after testing had finished.
“I always worry, sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes for the wrong reasons, but pre-season testing is always exciting because you always find the hair in the soup, things that are not good and we had some struggle in the first few days,” Wolff said via Formula1.com.
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“It’s not a matter of complacency, there’s a reason why there are not many teams winning World Championships or doing it consecutively. It’s an organisation that needs to stay energised and motivated at all times, and that’s not trivial.
“The shakedown, if it’s done in the right conditions, allows you to understand a little bit more, but our failures in the first days were not down to doing or not doing a shakedown,” he added.
If anything, the decision to hold the filming day after testing actually gave Mercedes a chance to run as the team continued to analyse the issues that emerged over the three days.
“On the job list is that we will crunch the data and try to understand where we performed well, and where not, where we had good correlation to our simulations and the tunnel and where not," Wolff explained.
"Just generally, it’s like sleeping overnight on an idea, the next day you wake up more intelligent.”
Since testing, much of the talk has centred around whether Red Bull, who enjoyed a strong pre-season, really is in a position to finally challenge Mercedes' domination.
And Wolff once again reiterated he expects that will be the case.
“They [Red Bull] are certainly the first competitor. They have the same resources as us and have a very ambitious team,” he told Sky Sports.
“With Max Verstappen, they have a driver who wants to follow in the footsteps of Lewis Hamilton and with Sergio Perez they have a driver who can also score regularly in the battle for the Constructors’ Championship.
“That’s why I see Red Bull as the main competitor.”
