The reigning world champi⛎ons had been tipped to bring a significant upgrade package to the second week of pre-season testing and rumours of a ‘sidepod-less’ design emerged leading up to the test. 

Lewis♌ Hamilton hit the track on Thursday morning in the updated W13, which features a much slimmer sidepod design. Mercedes’ updated 2022 challenger also has taller and narrower cooling inlets. 

Mercedes admitted a😼fter the opening test in Barcelona that it was looking at Red Bull’s “interesting” and similarly-aggressive sidepod design, which turned heads during the first week of running. 

Hamilton has already been spotted locking up several times during the early stages of the opening day, while the Mercedes once again appears to be suffering from F1’s porpoising phenomenon🏅.💛 

Elsewhere, there has been a dr𒉰iver line-up change at McLaren with Lando Norris taking over testing duties on Thursda🥃y. 

Daniel Ricciardo had originally been scheduled to run on the fir🅰st day but the Australian has been s🏅ubstituted after “feeling unwell”.

The second and final pre-season test takes place at the Bahrain International Circuit betwe💜en March 10-12, before the season gets underway at Sakhir on March 20.