Sergey Sirotkin felt the final day of pre-season testing was his best day of the eight as he completed one hundred and five laps, setting the tenth fastest time overall.
The Williams Martini Racing driver, who is one of two drivers set to make their Formula 1 race debut in 2018 alongside Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 Team racer Charles Leclerc, felt the weather conditions provided them with a great opportunity to get some useful data about the FW41, and further knowledge of how it works with some of Pirelli’s new range of tyres.
“Today was definitely the best day of the last two weeks,” said Sirotkin after Fridays running. “We managed quite a lot of laps in the morning and the afternoon.
“We completed quite a good set-up evaluation as well, with slightly different tyre compounds and fuel loads, so it was an interesting and nice day. The weather was on our side which made the car much more consistent and driveable, which we haven’t really had until Wednesday.”
Sirotkin says there is a lot to analyse between the test and the first race of the season, and hopefully the team can iron out the small issues that have affected them during the testing programme.
“It was the second proper testing day for me and the best one of them,” said Sirotkin. “There are still some issues, obviously. It’s not all great and there are many little things we need to analyse and try to learn from to get sorted for Australia, but at least we found out what things are right and what things are not, which gave us a direction to work in.
“Now we will do some homework and see where we will be in Australia.”
Sirotkin handed the car over to team-mate Lance Stroll for the last couple of hours of the test, and the Canadian feeling positive about the teams chances in Australia.
“That’s the last day of testing done, next up is Australia,” said Stroll. “Today felt pretty good, I think we did some good running.
“We have some bits and pieces to sort out before Australia but I feel pretty good in the car.”
