Nascar Damon Hill believes the performance of this season's Mercedes car will have a huge impact on whether Lewis Hamilton decides to continue in Formula 1

[Lupin]

Mercedes fell from a record-breaking streak of eight straight constructors' titles to a distant third in the championship last year and their new W14 has been evolved, albeit with the same no-sidepod design from last season.

"The narrow sidepod design is not something that we believe was fundamentally the reason why we didn't perform last year," Wolff stated.

Mercedes will, however, be changing the way they approach testing. Last year the team had two different cars for the two separate tests, although this year are committed to using their testing design in the opening Bahrain GP on March 5.