Valtteri Bottas concluded the opening day of the post-Spanish Grand Prix test with the fastest time, with the Mercedes-AMG Motorsport driver ending 1.422 seconds clear of Charles Leclerc, who was best of the rest for Scuderia Ferrari.
Of course, comparing testing times of different teams means very little in this day and age, with many unknowns to take into account, but the Finn was pleased with the performance of the W10 throughout the day, with plenty of laps completed to learn a lot more about the car.
Bottas, who lost the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday to team-mate Lewis Hamilton despite taking a dominant pole position, said it was another good day for Mercedes on Tuesday, and it was interesting to test some new mechanical items for the first time in conditions similar to what they faced across the weekend at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The Finn, twice a race winner in 2019 in the first five races, felt this was important as it enabled the team to be able to compare like for like and see whether the new items improved the performance of the chassis.
“Today’s test day has been really good,” said Bottas, who completed one hundred and thirty-one laps on Tuesday. “We completed a lot of laps and learned a lot. Our programme focused on the tyres and setup.
“We collected lots of data over the race weekend in similar conditions to what we had today in terms of temperature and wind, so it was nice to do some setup comparisons. There were some new mechanical test items on the car too which were interesting to try out.
“Everyone did a really good job after a long weekend, so it’s been another successful day.”
