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Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff says it’s hard to “interpret the lap times” in testing and determine which team has the fastest car.
During the first day of the second pre-season test, Wolff commented on Ferrari’s apparent lack of pace. Ferrari finished week 1 of testing in P14 and P15, while the first day of the second test wasn’t much better.
“It’s about learning and putting the bits together,” said Wolff.
“Today was a morning of that. You can just put it together a little bit.”
“You can see what the Ferrari power unit is capable of doing on the Alfa [Romeo] and the Haas and the Ferrari top speed is far away from that, so there’s probably a second in that.
“And we don’t know the fuel load, so there’s not a lot we can interpret from the lap times.”
The Austrian said he was proud of how the W11 is performing so far, even though he cannot be sure it’s the fastest car.
“I was just out on circuit and it makes me proud to see the car perform like it does. The car is stable and it looks really good, even in these conditions. We have a solid case to start the season.
“Maybe it’s not the quickest car, but I would hope so, but maybe it’s not.
“If it’s not, at least we have a starting base on which we can develop and gradually increase our performances,” concluded Wolff.
