Mercedes F1 news: Valtteri Bottas points out ‘massive issues’ with the 2019 car

Mercedes are going into the 2019 season with history on their mind. If they manage to secure another driver’s and constructor’s double, they would be the first ever F1 team to rack up such an achievement.

However, from the looks of it, things aren’t going according to plan for Mercedes. The first week of winter testing in Barcelona shows that Ferrari could have the stronger car this season.

Mercedes have always opted to keep things a little lowkey in testing, but this time the problems seem to be real.

Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton did not quite look to top the lap timings charts but it was not because they were ‘sandbagging’, at least according to Valtteri Bottas.

Wow – sound the ‘stark admission’ klaxon! 😮
Valtteri Bottas says Mercedes needs an upgrade package to solve handling issues after just four days of #F1 testing in 2019… 😱https://t.co/p0mroIMsaM

— Motorsport.com (@Motorsport) February 22, 2019

Valtteri Bottas offers some insight into why Mercedes is behind Ferrari right now – and why an upgrade is needed https://t.co/yqZOHY8R8H

— Jon Noble (@NobleF1) February 22, 2019

Bottas has gone onto highlight ‘massive balance issues’ with the new W10.

“We have work to do, but it’s a good feeling in the sense that it feels like there is potential,” Bottas said.

“We do need to make improvements.

“We were struggling a bit over the week to find a good balance for all the corners.

“There were some corners that were good, some corners we would have balance issues and other corners we would have massive balance issues.” he added.

Bottas has explained that Mercedes is suffering from handling issues, which did get a little better as the week progressed, but still has a lot of scope for improvement.

“We were getting to a much better state at the end of the week, but some of the handling issues can only be sorted with some upgrades. We’re hoping to fix those hopefully soon.” Bottas concluded.