While we may have to wait for Bahrain Grand Prix qualifying to find out the real answer, if the first day of practice for the 2022 Formula 1 season opener is anything to go by, Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton may not have been underplaying their chances of winning races any time soon.
The sidepod-less Mercedes W13 proved to be a handful relative to its rivals, as Max Verstappen set the pace in the Red Bull on Friday evening at Sakhir. He ended 1.2 seconds up on Hamilton, down in ninth, with new Silver Arrows teammate George Russell's fourth-fastest, half a second shy of the top time. Neither driver happy.
After testing the radical W13 in Bahrain earlier this month, Hamilton let it be known they had work to do and said for the first time that his was not a winning car, just yet.
He repeated himself to reporters after the session at Sakhir: "I am just realistic, and at the moment, like I told you last week, we are not going to be in the race for a win.
“If you look at the Red Bulls, they are a long, long way ahead, in the region of eight to nine-tenths, and Ferrari are half a second to six tenths ahead," lamented Hamilton, a five-time winner of the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Ironically his former long-time teammate Valtteri Bottas, now driving for minnows Alfa Romeo was a couple of tenths faster than Hamilton.
Lewis: We'll work as hard as we can to get through it and do what we can
In the team report later, The Briton shed light on his day: "In the second session, my front two discs were at different temperatures, the left one running cooler and the right one coming up in temperature.
"When hitting the brakes the right one was pulling the steering. It meant you didn't get the laps in so that wasn't great but it's not a massive issue and we can fix it.
"The bouncing we're experiencing is losing us downforce compared to the others which is making it much harder out there. We're not bluffing like people assume we are but we'll work as hard as we can to get through it and do what we can.
"At the moment, we're not going to be in the race for the win here, Red Bull are 0.8/0.9secs ahead and Ferrari are half a second ahead so we're scrapping with whoever is behind them.
"I'm still calm, just trying to be the best I can be and get the best out of the car. It's not ideal but we'll pull together as a team to try and fix it," added Hamilton.
Shovlin: We're expecting a tough couple of days where we need to focus on damage limitation
In the team's Bahrain practice report, Mercedes trackside director Andrew Shovlin confirmed what was evident even on TV, that Hamilton and Russell were running different setups in an effort to optimise both cars from the data gathered on the day.
"Our first session made use of the fact that we had two cars for the first time this year and chose to run them in different specifications," revealed Shovlin. "That was a useful test and we got a clear read on which setup and floor specification was best for the bouncing.
"However, we're still struggling to get the rear of the car much lower and trying to do that gave the drivers a fairly bumpy time of it in the second session. In terms of pace, we have a significant gap to Ferrari and Red Bull, especially Max on the long run.
"There are some relatively easy gains we might be able to make overnight with the balance but we're not going to find more than a few tenths. More important is that we keep learning as we don't seem to have understood the bouncing as well as some of the others, it may also be that we're lacking a bit of car pace.
"So, we're expecting a tough couple of days where we need to focus on damage limitation but also continuing to experiment to see if we can find a better place to run the car," concluded Shovlin.
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