The Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team completed full race simulations as both their drivers split testing duties on day 2 of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.
Lewis Hamilton clocked an impressive 106 laps in the morning session as he completed a full race simulation. Valtteri Bottas added another 77 laps to the tally even as his afternoon session ended early as the W11 hit electrical problems.
Hamilton and Bottas were only ninth and thirteenth on the time charts as the team focused on long runs. The new Dual-Axis Steering (DAS) revealed by onboard shots attracted a lot of discussion in the paddock.
Hamilton was satisfied after a grueling morning session and said: “It’s been another beautiful day here in Barcelona and we got some great mileage on the new car today. As a team, we completed a race run in the morning, which is great for reliability and shows the foundation we are starting on.
“This is probably the first day ever, that I can remember, where I finished a test session and wanted to continue. We had 20 minutes left and I wanted us to maximise and do more laps, but we’d ran out of tyres. It felt good today and I felt physically fantastic. To get through a race run and still feel at the end of it that I could do another 100 laps is a good feeling.”
Bottas had a less trouble-free session as it was shortened due to electrical problems. Bottas said: “We completed 77 laps this afternoon, which is a good number. But obviously running was cut short because of an issue, which made the day a bit trickier. It was a good day of learning more about the car. We got some good mileage in and I almost completed a full race simulation.
“So, there was a lot of good experience gained from that and lots of data for us to investigate ahead of tomorrow. For me, personally, there are many learnings to take away from that race simulation and look into further. The car felt good and I’m looking forward to continuing the running tomorrow morning, hopefully we will have a clean day.”
Bottas will take the wheel in the morning session of the final day of testing of the first test of the 2020 season.
