Mercedes showed a glimpse of the speed that so terrifies its rivals as Nico Rosberg posted the fastest time Tuesday in preseason testing for the Formula One season, while world champion Lewis Hamilton used his time on the track for a race simulation.
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Hill said any “cautious optimism” from Mercedes should be taken with a pinch of salt and suggested their real thoughts were of more dominance ahead.
Rookie Rio Haryanto’s hard start at Manor continued as he completed only two laps without registering a time due to an oil leak in the morning. “We took some fuel out for once which was nice for me to get in to it to be able to push some more, so we put down some lap times and it was a good feeling”. “It’s been a good test, reliability has been good, the speed has been there – it’s all working to plan”.
“Over the course of the first four days in Barcelona we’ve done a good amount of running and already learned a lot about our package, which should stand us in good stead for next week”, said McLaren director of engineering Matt Morris.
He was two tenths of a second faster than Valtteri Bottas (1:23.229) who was using the ultra-soft tyres on his Mercedes-powered Williams.
There was encouragement for McLaren and Fernando Alonso meanwhile, as the Spaniard – restricted to just three laps on the final day of last week’s test – racked up 50 laps and set the third fastest time. We did some short runs today which I really enjoyed.
Honda are introducing revisions to their power unit for the second test, while Jenson Button tweeted there was a “lot of new stuff coming for test two” from McLaren.
Dutch teenager Max Verstappen managed double that tally with a marathon 144 laps for Toro Rosso in seventh fastest. Much of the day’s programme concentrated on engine mode and driveability tests, tyre compound assessments as well as aerodynamic set-up changes. “We are a new group”. The Italian team has switched from Renault to 2015 Ferrari engines.
Despite that, Hasegawa said: “We were able to run a decent amount of laps to finish the first day of the second test in Barcelona”.
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“On the power unit side, we tested many different modes of running to prepare for the race, so it was a busy day for the system engineers”.
