Lewis Hamilton is delighted with the competitiveness of the Mercedes W04 at Albert Park despite ending the afternoon in the tyre barrier. The Briton took a trip through the gravel at turn six following damage to the floor but he didn’t let that take away from a day where the car proved to be the nearest challenger to pacesetters Red Bull.
“Overall it was a good day, if perhaps not the smoothest. I’m happy with where we are and to see Nico in third place on the timesheets shows that we’re pretty competitive. That’s a reflection of a great job that everyone has done at the factory and here at the track. I’m looking forward to the rest of the weekend.”
Teammate Nico Rosberg also stopped out on track late in the second session with a gearbox problem but with the qualifying and race units not coming into play until tomorrow, his weekend won’t have been adversely affected.
“That was an interesting day for us. There are a lot of new things to learn with the car and we made some good progress over the day. We can certainly be happy with our testing programme when you compare where we came from last year. My car had a gearbox problem at the end of the second session but these things happen and it doesn’t affect us for tomorrow.”
