Mercedes and McLaren had their track debut at Silverstone with its 2024 F1 machine, as Ferrari continued its running.
Post their morning launch, both Mercedes and McLaren hit the track at Silverstone for its shakedown ahead of the Bahrain pre-season test next week. The two weren’t on track at the same time, though, but chose the same day to run their cars.
George Russell got to drive the W15 in the morning hours, with Lewis Hamilton doing so in the afternoon. At the same time, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri got to drive the MCL38 too. Both the teams had a hampered running due to wet conditions.
“It’s hard to say just because it was wet here,” said Norris to media including FormulaRapida.net. “You don’t really get that many laps, and it’s on tyres that aren’t even the actual tyres we use, so it’s difficult to compare too many things. But the main thing is I jumped in and felt very comfortable straight away, no surprises or anything, so comfortable and could just push it to the limit on just a couple of little areas.
“But, honestly, not a lot more to say than that. It’s always just a very different thing when you get on track for the first time in Bahrain, depending on weather conditions and all of those things. So we have to wait till we get to Bahrain to really understand how they will compare to one another.”
At the same time, Piastri added: “Yeah, no surprises today really. Everything felt pretty comfortable and went smoothly which was good. But you never really know what you’ve got until you compare it to other people. So I think we’ll have to wait a little bit longer to see what we’ve really got but I think, as these kinds of days go, that was smooth sailing.”
On the other side, Ferrari continued its running at Fiorano for a second day of shakedown with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. Also, Haas shared more on-track shots from its filming day when Nico Hulkenberg got the chance to drive.
Here’s Mercedes videos: https://x.com/MercedesAMGF1/status/1757752822643249519?s=20
Here’s McLaren video: https://x.com/McLarenF1/status/1757771676949827942?s=20
https://x.com/McLarenF1/status/1757780728832495912?s=20
https://x.com/McLarenF1/status/1757807645753229816?s=20
https://x.com/McLarenF1/status/1757830254087815598?s=20
Here’s McLaren launch
Here’s Mercedes launch
Here’s McLaren naming Dropbox as new partner
Here’s McLaren having F1 test runs
Here’s Lando Norris on Max Verstappen’s rivalry
Here’s Oscar Piastri on low-key weekends
Here’s Toto Wolff on potential replacement
Here’s Mercedes undertaking Pirelli tyre testing
Here’s Toto Wolff on team situation due to departure
Here’s Toto Wolff not having hard feelings for Frederic Vasseur
Here’s Lewis Hamilton with his first thoughts on departure
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