Lewis Hamilton grasped the first podium for Mercedes in Bahrain but the Silver Arrows are still struggling.
The team admitted that the first Grand Prix weekend did not go to plan and after testing many admitted that they are not as competitive.
Many wonder whether it is the Mercedes engine that is causing the problems.
Some observed how all teams powered by the Mercedes engine, McLaren, Aston Martin and Williams all suffered to compete.
McLaren had one of their worst weekends in recent years, not even making it into Q3 on Saturday.
So do Mercedes need to take a good look at their engine or do they need to explore ways to make it more compatible with the 2022 regulations?
Mercedes Problems in Bahrain
Lewis Hamilton had a podium finish while George Russell follow him in fourth.
The great result came thanks to the failures both Red Bull suffered and the safety car intervention because of the Alpha Tauri catching fire.
During the weekend, Mercedes were not on the top of their game.
George Russell finished in fourth in all practice sessions during the weekend.
On the other hand, FP1 saw Hamilton finish in seventh while he finished in ninth below Mick Schumacher’s Haas in FP2.
Hamilton put his Mercedes in sixth during FP3 before going on to guarantee himself the fifth position on the starting grid for Sunday, during qualifying.
Meanwhile, George Russell started in ninth below Valtteri Bottas’ Alfa Romeo, Kevin Magnussen in the Haas and Fernando Alonso’s Alpine.
During pre-season testing, the Mercedes was not looking very fast either and was suffering from porpoising.
While some thought that the new floor was raising concerns for the UK-based team, Toto Wolff admitted that some of the problems might be caused by the power unit.
The team principal also explained how the car struggled with a lot of drag.
He said, “I think we were probably over-winged.
“We had too much drag and that is just because we are lacking parts at the moment and hopefully we can remedy that.
“It is half or a little bit more maybe of the top speed advantage but we need to really leave no stone unturned on the power unit side.”
In Bahrain, Mercedes struggled to gain speed on the straights and did not manage to get inside the speed trap.
After the first pit-stop, which saw Lewis Hamilton put on the hard compound tyre, the Brit also suffered to find grip.
It was a weird decision by the team as it is unusual to see teams choose the hard compound at such a track.
Aston Martin Down the Table
Being their own car manufacturer, Aston Martin do look at supplying their own engine in the future.
They will stick to the Mercedes engine until at least 2026 when the new engine regulations come into place.
When we asked Chief Technical Officer Andrew Green about the engine works for this season, he admitted that the power unit was the less component looked at.
Aston Martin worked well with Mercedes and the engine simply had to be calibrated with the new E10 fuel which teams are using this year.
Maybe something else went wrong for the team, but is it a coincidence that another team powered by Mercedes are having problems?
Mike Krack said that currently, they are happy with the engine the team is supplied with.
During the Bahrain GP, the team suffered a disappointing result of 12th for Lance Stroll and 17th for Nico Hulkenberg who replaced Sebastian Vettel as he tested positive.
Both cars were out of Q1 on Saturday and also struggled to demonstrate enough speed during the practice sessions.
Image Credit: Mazen Mahdi – Getty Images
McLaren Disastrous Start
McLaren are powered by Mercedes and had several problems since pre-season testing.
During testing, the only driver to take part was Lando Norris as Daniel Ricciardo tested positive for Covid-19.
On the first day, the team suffered some problems with their brakes and lost track time to try and solve the problem.
It was said that the team would manage to solve the problem until Bahrain, but as they headed into the race weekend, more problems arose.
The drivers could not get any power from their cars.
Daniel Ricciardo spent a great amount of time stuck at the back, trying to reach the rest of the pack but instead became the first driver lapped by race leader Charles Leclerc.
Lando Norris failed to compete too and if it wasn’t for the Red Bull and AlphaTauri retirements, both drivers would have finished in the last four.
Both drivers admitted that there is a lot of data to look at and the team did not speak out about any possible problems to the public.
Mercedes supplied McLaren in 2021.
The New Zealandic team went on to finish in fourth below Ferrari and also managed a one-two in Monza.
Ricciardo struggled to get used to his car, many claiming that it might be the Mercedes engine since he had never driven a car powered by it before.
But now, the new engine is also calibrated with the new E10 fuel, which sees the car lose 40 horsepower.
Is the engine compatible with the McLaren or does the team have more experimenting to do before they reach the level they want to this season?
Williams Do Not Improve Race Pace
Williams have been struggling for the past five years.
This is surely not the place that they want to be in and testing seemed to show some hope for them.
They were having a good qualifying pace during 2021, managing to get both cars into Q2 at times.
During the Bahrain weekend, both Alexander Albon and Nicholas Latifi had disappointing timings in the practice sessions.
In qualifying, Latifi finished in last place, six-tenths of a second behind Lance Stroll.
Albon on the other hand managed to make it into Q2 and started on 14th on Sunday.
During the race, not much changed for the team.
Williams have been partnered with Mercedes since 2014. Before that, long gone were the glory days that they once celebrated in the past.
And they seem pretty distant now too, as the team has lots of work to do to get back to where they once were.
It is not easy for Williams to simply decide to let Mercedes go because they have a great relationship which is also seen in the projects in regards to drivers.
At the end of the day, one might argue that it is unfair for someone to say that the Mercedes engine is the problem, but also it is fair to say that all teams that are powered by Mercedes are mainly struggling.
Another phenomenon we saw was when Renault powered Red Bull and McLaren, and both teams decided to, later on, have an engine switch.
Head Image Credit: Mercedes AMG F1