© Wolfgang Wilhelm for Daimler AG
Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Mercedes Technical Director James Allison give their comments on the second day of Week 2 of testing.
Damp conditions to start the morning session and an issue during the afternoon limited the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team’s running to 284 kilometres at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Thursday.
- Valtteri’s morning started in damp and slippery conditions, giving him a chance to sample the Intermediate tyre, before the track dried out enough for him to switch focus to longer runs and set-up work
- Mileage was limited for Lewis in the afternoon session, after an oil pressure anomaly caused the engine to shut down as a precautionary measure, bringing an early end to running
- Today’s programme focused on running the Intermediate tyre, due to the damp conditions early on, before moving onto continued set-up work and a focus on the C3 tyre
- Mercedes-Benz Power Units completed a total of 1,634 km today
- Lewis will be driving the Mercedes-AMG F1 W11 EQ Performance for the final morning session of testing on Friday, with Valtteri concluding our running in the afternoon
Valtteri Bottas
Obviously, the running today in the morning was slightly limited with the wet weather. But we got a couple of runs in with the intermediate tyre, which is always useful. We had a good feeling on that tyre in those conditions and gathered some good information. The session was slightly disrupted by red flags, so we missed some of the test items we planned to do. However, we still completed a few good long runs and set-up work – so got some decent mileage in. I have one afternoon left in the car, which I’m really looking forward to. I feel pretty ready to race. We had a few issues here and there, but the team is working on resolving them and we’ll sort everything out for tomorrow.
Lewis Hamilton
I only got 14 laps in today, but during those 14 laps, everything was feeling fine. It’s obviously not ideal that we didn’t get a full day of running in and we experienced this issue, but there are lots of learnings to take from today. Rather than looking at the negatives, we’ve discovered some things we need to work on, and we’ll keep pushing hard to resolve them and keep working away. I’m looking forward to being back in the car tomorrow morning and adding to the mileage we’ve already achieved.
James Allison
It’s frustrating when there’s only six days of winter testing, to be spending half of one day in the garage. But, nevertheless, we did some good work this morning with Valtteri. Furthermore, in the solitary run that we managed with Lewis this afternoon, we managed to get a very useful data point from the car. We’re happy to have learnt more about its behaviour, and we’re reassured that in blustery conditions, that the car has still got a decent turn of pace. We’re looking forward to tomorrow, where we’ll have a good amount of time with both drivers on the softer tyre compounds; working on single-lap set-up and performance.
Source: Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team
