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The German manufacturer enjoyed an encouraging first day of testing, but things went awry on Friday as it struggled to find a good balance with the W14.
George Russell ended the day down in 13th on the timesheets, two seconds off pacesetter Guanyu Zhou, while Lewis Hamilton was a further three tenths adrift.
Mercedes’ efforts were further hampered by a hydraulic problem that hit Russell late in the afternoon. The issue left him stranded out on track and cut short the team’s running.
Mercedes has admitted to being left confused about why things turned around so strangely during the second day of action, and said there was some urgency to get answers before the final day begins.
Trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin, who was seen in deep discussion with team boss Toto Wolff after the session, said: “We’ve not had a strong second day; stopping on track with a reliability issue wasn’t great and we have struggled to get the car balanced well across the changing conditions.
“We’ve got some investigations going on to understand why this has been such a challenge today when yesterday it w …