Mercedes says its "highest priority" for the Spanish Grand Prix is to come away from Barcelona having solved the MGU-H issues suffered at back-to-back weekends.
Lewis Hamilton suffered a failure in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix, forcing him to start from the back of the grid. An identical issue occurred ahead of Q3 in Russia, meaning Hamilton started tenth and could only finish second, leaving Sochi 43 points behind Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg in the championship.
Mercedes has had to publicly defend itself in the week since Russia due to those setbacks and technical chief Paddy Lowe says the team has been working "day and night" to resolve the issue ahead of Spain.
"We've all been to this circuit already in 2016 during winter testing -- but it's a very different track in May compared to how it was back in March," he said. "It will be much warmer and the tyres will behave differently. We have the hard, medium and soft compounds to choose from, which presents some challenges. The soft will be essential for qualifying but not be a great race tyre, so determining the optimum strategy will be a focal point.
"Qualifying and race starts will also be important, as it is notoriously difficult to overtake at this circuit. But the highest priority is to come back with our MGU-H problem solved, having had a repeat fault over the past two race weekends. The team has been working day and night to understand it and we're targeting a clean weekend all round."
Lowe is keen to see how Mercedes compares to its rivals at a circuit renowned for being a good indicator of aerodynamic strength.
"The first European race on the calendar traditionally marks the beginning of a new phase of the season. Most of our race freight has been away since early March, so it gives us a chance to refresh the parts and equipment as we transfer everything out of the air freight and over to the race trucks - a busy time for the race team!
"Barcelona itself is a circuit which is very demanding of all aspects of car performance. There's a common saying in Formula One that if you're quick around Barcelona, you'll be quick everywhere. This makes it an important landmark in the season to see where you stand in performance terms, as most teams will be bringing a range of upgrades."