Wolff: Our expectations we would be playing catch-up

Mercedes had a terrible season in 2022 as their "innovative" W13 turned out to be a lemon of a car with its vicious bouncing tendencies, and despite some slight improvement culminating in George Russell's victory at the 2022 Sao Paulo Grand Prix, last season was a write-off for the eight-time Constructors' Champions.

As for 2023, Mercedes seem to have stuck with their slim sidepods design, but the W14 doesn't seem to be a fast machine despite the bouncing being absent from its character.

Previewing the upcoming 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix; Toto Wolff said: "We didn't have the smoothest winter test in Bahrain. We had some reliability problems and struggled with the car set-up on day two.

"But the key objective was to learn about the car, and we did lots of learning. We made good progress on the final day, which gave us directions to work on in the short period between the test and this weekend's race.

"It's always hard to have a clear picture of competitiveness at pre-season testing - and even more so with only three days of data available. Our expectations were that we would likely be playing catch-up to the front, based on how last year ended.

"That seems to be the case so far but we will only know for sure after this weekend," Wolff admitted ahead of the season opener. "Nevertheless, we are confident we have got a car we can work with and are in a stronger position than 12 months ago.

"More importantly, we are relishing the challenge. This championship will be fought over 23 race weekends, and each one will give us an opportunity to improve," the Austrian insisted.

"The start of a new season is always exciting, whether you've been working in this sport for a few decades, years or weeks," Wolff went on. "So much hard work has gone into the W14 over the winter and the anticipation to be get racing has kept on building.

"We will be going flat out this weekend - and are determined to keep that going to the final lap in Abu Dhabi," the Mercedes boss concluded.