Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport race engineer Andrew Shovlin said the team had a “useful” testing session on day two of the in-season test, as the team set the fastest time of the day.
Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas clocked the fastest time of the test, setting a 1:16.904. This was almost three seconds faster than the fastest time from the first test of the year, which was also at the track.
That time was set by Scuderia Ferrari‘s Sebastian Vettel and, whilst it looked like Ferrari might have the edge for 2018, Mercedes’ pace has regularly outshone that of Ferrari – a theme that continued at the second test, where Mercedes set a faster time than Ferrari (and did so on slower tyres).
Commenting on the second day Shovlin said that the car ran “faultlessly“, and that the team now has a busy period of analysing the data and preparing for the Monaco Grand Prix.
“We’ve had Valtteri in the car today and have had another very useful day of testing, with the car running faultlessly throughout.
“We had a fairly similar programme to Lewis, using the early part of the day to do a number of the aerodynamic test items, then getting into a programme of short run work before lunch and longer runs in the afternoon.
“There were a few cars that stopped on track in the afternoon causing red flags, which does impact on your plans.
“But, we have been able to complete almost all the important work we had planned and have made some good progress in further understanding the car and tyres.
“We have a very busy few days coming up, finishing our analysis from the race and test and getting stuck into preparations for Monaco to ensure we are ready for its unique challenges.“
