No more sandbagging. Mercedes, who has showcased a subpar performance throughout the Bahrain Pre-Season Testing and added the unimpressive performance of the triple Free Practice sessions in that stack, has come out full throttle. While many thought that the team was hiding their real performance, others were scared of a repeat of the 2022 horror show the Silver Arrows fans had to go through seeing their team sometime even struggling to make it out of Q1. But George Russell has put the fans at ease with a brilliant show in the first part of the qualifying session at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

With that bouncing and worthy-of-forgetting nightmare in the past, Mercedes probably took the route they were usually infamous for; Sandbagging. Sandbagging is when the teams hide their real speed and run a slow show during practice and testing. Ideally, the practice undertaken to keep the “evil eye” away has been associated with the Brackley outfit because of how they fooled the world and their main rivals, Ferrari. This time, because of their 2022 demonstration, they had all competitors and onlookers fooled and stressed.

When your rivals don’t know your actual performance, they can’t possibly improve keeping you as the benchmark.

Fans breathed a sigh of relief seeing George Russell

But the biggest surprise came through in the Q1 session of qualifying, which saw Carlos Sainz top the session, and George Russell finished a few tenths behind him in second. The heads turned and Mercedes fans breathed a sigh of relief and want Lewis Hamilton to join in on the fun. The F1 world on Twitter went berserk seeing the 8-time champion team being competitive against the rivals and even beating them in Q1. Have a look at how fans reacted:

What are your thoughts on Mercedes’s actual pace? Let us know in the comments below.