It hasn’t gone according to plan for the most successful F1 team of the turbo-hybrid era. Back on track for the first time since last year’s season finale in Abu Dhabi for pre-season testing in Bahrain, the Mercedes car came to a halt after encountering some problems. However, their Twitter account saw the funny side of their plight.

Their social media game is world-class. They regularly catch the attention with their witty posts, even trolling themselves at times. And that’s what they have precisely done this time around as well.

After Valtteri Bottas’ W12 suffered a gearbox failure, it had to be brought into the pits for some change. Hence, during the morning session, we did not witness them for more than a few laps. Recognizing that, Mercedes‘ official Twitter Account uploaded the following tweet –

Hilarious indeed! Now, we know that the admin didn’t encounter an error while uploading the picture. Rather, he was making fun of the fact that there was no W12-related content to upload.

Their customer team, Aston Martin, also joined in on the fun. Watch their comical reply yourself below –

Mercedes not panicking despite the failure

Valtteri Bottas can’t really get the rub of the green. The problems started in the transmission around 7:45 in the morning. And after about three hours later, he was able to join the track. But unfortunately for him, as soon as he got out, Charles Leclerc‘s Ferrari also broke down.

So, Bottas was not able to get more than 10 laps under his belt. In the afternoon session, his chief-championship rival and teammate, Lewis Hamilton, will take over.

However, in spite of all of that, Mercedes are not fretting. Team Principal Toto Wolff, while acknowledging the issues, also noted that there are still two-and-a-half days of testing to go for them.

“It wasn’t a good start because of a gearbox issue that came out of nowhere, which we haven’t been able to identify and understand. If we’re able to have a smoother ride from here onwards, I think we can recover,” Toto told Sky Sports Germany.

There are still two days of testing to go for Bottas. Hopefully, they are able to wrap their head around the issues surrounding the W12 by then.

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