Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team driver Valtteri Bottas is pleased with the progress made during testing at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona this week, in his first proper outing for the Silver Arrows squad.
The Finn took to the F1 W08 EQ power+ during the afternoon on day four, after teammate Lewis Hamilton had his morning session curtailed by electrical issues. Bottas also had his day cut short by an hour when Mercedes found something in the data they did not like, but was still able to complete the most mileage of any driver across the four days, with 324 laps to his name.
https://twitter.com/ValtteriBottas/status/837368763817332736
“Unfortunately the day was a little bit shorter than we were hoping for but overall it has been a very good four days for us in Barcelona.
“As a team we really made the most out of this week. We’ve done a lot of mileage and I learned a lot.” Thursday was all about wet weather running, the track having been artificially soaked to allow rain work, and Bottas was happy with the day’s efforts on the new compound wet tyres, especially in terms of data collected on the intermediates, which had caused problems for teams last season.
“Today we did some good running on the extreme wets and the intermediate tyres, before crossing over to the slicks. It was interesting to test in the damp track conditions and we got some very useful information about the intermediate tyre.
Mercedes did not top the times on the final day of testing as they were concentrating on getting a better understanding of the tyres prior to the Australian Grand Prix during the final stages of the day, but Bottas was positive ahead of next week’s second test, and feels he has already learnt plenty during this week’s running.
“We ended the day completing long runs on the slicks, to build up our understanding of the tyres ahead of Melbourne. “ “I’ve really enjoyed working with the team this week. Once again, all the mechanics and engineers have done a great job, and thanks to everyone at the factory, because the car has run so well.”
