Mercedes in ‘unplanned’ meeting with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell

Mercedes reportedly held an unplanned meeting with Lewis Hamilton, George Russell and several members of staff in Bahrain after a disappointing afternoon of pre-season testing on Friday. The Silver Arrows failed to get anywhere close to the fastest time of the day, which was set by Guanyu Zhou on the softest available tyres ahead of defending world champion Max Verstappen in second place.

Hamilton ended the day in 13th place, two positions behind Russell, as Mercedes continued to struggle with teething problems on their all-new W14 challenger with just over a week until the action begins for real at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. The German outfit also suffered from a major reliability issue when Russell was forced to stop at the edge of the circuit with a hydraulic failure, which restricted him to just 26 laps of running in the afternoon.

It seems as though Mercedes chiefs were unhappy with how things went as they held an ‘unplanned’ meeting with both of their drivers in the paddock after the session, according to Auto Motor und Sport. Hamilton and Russell were spotted in deep conversation with some of their engineers as they presumably ran the rule over what went wrong, while Toto Wolff was also in attendance and was seen watching intently.

Whether or not this is a sign of an early crisis at Mercedes remains to be seen, with the Silver Arrows having failed to pull up any trees in the first two days of pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit. They have decided to stick with a similar design philosophy with the construction of the W14 to last year’s car, which often struggled to keep up with the pace of their rivals as they limped to a third-placed finish in the Constructors’ Championship standings.

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Those in power at Mercedes will be desperately hoping to steer clear of another sub-par season as they look to rejoin the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari at the very front of the pecking order, which could mean a drastic change in car design if they fail to improve things as a matter of priority. Wolff has already warned that Mercedes could tweak their uniquely slim sidepods if they feel the need to do so during the upcoming campaign, which suggests that contingency measures may have been put in place at their Brackley headquarters.

“Throughout last season we have analysed it back and forth, whether it was right or not,” said Wolff earlier this month. “Obviously you can see the sidepods are very different to any other car, but we believe that this is not the performance relative part.

“Obviously, there is no such thing as a holy cow here. We are looking at everything and, on the sidepods, this is the first iteration, and when we’re going through the first few races that’s going to change a little bit.”

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Meanwhile, it was recently claimed by Sky Sports reporter Ted Kravitz that Mercedes are likely to have a back-up plan in place for the season ahead if they end up scrapping their existing design philosophy in favour of a more proven solution.

“They’re giving their big idea that was a failure last year one more go, but I believe they have a plan B in production,” Kravitz told Sky Sports. “If they need to, they can go to a plan B, which is the Red Bull or Ferrari style of doing things, in the middle of the season.

“That’s why we’re hearing from Mercedes… these rules are here for another few years yet so they’ve got to get it right at some point. At the moment they’re saying: ‘We think we’ve got a proper handle on what went wrong last year, we still believe our way of having very slim sidepods is the way to go aerodynamically’.

“They say most of the downforce is generated by the floor, which you can’t see, but they’re saying don’t expect anything too soon. I think if they went away without three or four wins in the season they’d be disappointed.”

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