When the seven-times world champions were asked about their first day of testing in Bahrain on Friday, they replied it was "not an ideal start", with a lot of work to do overnight. Valtteri Bottas had lost two thirds of his morning session due to a gearbox failure, and Lewis Hamilton fought both his machinery and sandy conditions to gather just 42 laps around the Bahraini track.

Entering Saturday, the Brackley-based squad was determined to complete their programme as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, Hamilton lost his W12 at Turn 13 halfway through the morning session, and ended up beached, causing the session to be red flagged. He ultimately returned on track, and gathered a solid 58-laps long run.

Valtteri Bottas on the other hand, had had a much smoother session, as he topped the leaderboard with a 1:30.289 on the softest tyres’ compound, and collected as many laps as his most decorated teammate.

All in all, whilst finally topping the time sheet of a session, Mercedes is at the bottom of the mileage chart with 162 laps completed in total, as Alpine is leading the field with 257 rounds.

However, when asked how close the team was to becoming worried, Hamilton downplayed suggestions that Mercedes could be in trouble given its setbacks.

“It’s day two of testing, we’re just focused on doing our job, so nowhere near at the moment”

“I think we’re just focusing on trying to understand the car. There’s no point in getting worried just yet.”

“Everyone is focusing on their programmes, and that is what we’re doing.”

Reflecting on the sensations he was having behind the wheel, the Briton asserted that his W12 car felt “pretty much the same” as it did during his first run-out, but was happier with the track conditions after a sandstorm marred Friday’s running.

He explained how tricky it was for him to find the rear stability with the wind making a U-turn, and causing him to spin.

“Today the wind I think did a 180, so the track is a lot different today.”

“Some places you can push where you couldn’t yesterday, and it’s very gusty, as I found out into Turn 13.”

“So the rear doesn’t feel particularly great with this new regulation change, but we’re trying to find the sweet spot.”

Asked how useful testing had been to find areas for Mercedes to improve on the W12 car, Hamilton replied: “Compared to the past, it’s not been particularly useful."

“We’ve done what, 60 laps? Something like that. And Valtteri I think is about to go and do his first laps, so it’s not a lot compared to other test days we’d normally have, but we’re trying to be as efficient as we can be.”

“We have less mileage than some of the others, like the Red Bulls, so far. We’re just trying to stick to our programme and manage the amount of laps that we have also, and try to be as efficient as we can.”

💬 "I can’t be jumping around happy - it is only testing. As always, we are just focused on getting through our programme."

Shov, Valtteri and LH with the latest from F1 Testing in Bahrain 👇

— Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team (@MercedesAMGF1) March 13, 2021