Photo: Daimler AG
After two days of testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, during which both Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg encountered small problems that made them only manage to do 89 laps each, the third day was a bit luckier for Nico Rosberg.
The day didn't start as good as it could have, as Mercedes-AMG Petronas engineers had to do a precautionary engine change on the F1 W05 after an overnight inspection of the high-mileage components which were near the end of their life span.
Nico jumped behind the wheel of the single-seater at 12:00 Bahrain time, managing to complete 22 laps before the lunch brake.
81 more laps were completed by the German in the afternoon, with the team's program including a car setup evaluation, some long stints and qualifying simulations.
Nico Rosberg: “That was an incredible effort by the team and I'm really happy with our day's work. The Night shift crew recognized a strange sound from the engine while working on it during the night so we had to change it, which took a good few hours and meant we missed out on running for most of the morning. In the end I managed to do over 100 laps, so this was a very useful day of testing for me and I learned a lot in the process. The only problem was the conditions, with a lot of wind and blowing sand at some corners meaning that suddenly you could have almost no grip which was a bit difficult to manage.
Overall I can be really happy about my testing program, so a big thanks to everyone in the team both here and back at the two factories for the remarkable job they've done. As in the case for everybody, we still have a few reliability problems that definitely need to be sorted out before Australia, but in general I think that winter tests have been better than expected. After some work in the simulator next week I will fly to Melbourne on Friday, and I can't wait to be back in the car again.“
From the total of 103 laps that Nico did during the third day of testing, his best lap time was 1:33.484. This put him second on the time sheets and it was also the first time this year's pre-season testing that Mercedes-AMG Petronas exceeded 100 laps in a single day.
Nico jumped behind the wheel of the single-seater at 12:00 Bahrain time, managing to complete 22 laps before the lunch brake.
81 more laps were completed by the German in the afternoon, with the team's program including a car setup evaluation, some long stints and qualifying simulations.
Nico Rosberg: “That was an incredible effort by the team and I'm really happy with our day's work. The Night shift crew recognized a strange sound from the engine while working on it during the night so we had to change it, which took a good few hours and meant we missed out on running for most of the morning. In the end I managed to do over 100 laps, so this was a very useful day of testing for me and I learned a lot in the process. The only problem was the conditions, with a lot of wind and blowing sand at some corners meaning that suddenly you could have almost no grip which was a bit difficult to manage.
Overall I can be really happy about my testing program, so a big thanks to everyone in the team both here and back at the two factories for the remarkable job they've done. As in the case for everybody, we still have a few reliability problems that definitely need to be sorted out before Australia, but in general I think that winter tests have been better than expected. After some work in the simulator next week I will fly to Melbourne on Friday, and I can't wait to be back in the car again.“
From the total of 103 laps that Nico did during the third day of testing, his best lap time was 1:33.484. This put him second on the time sheets and it was also the first time this year's pre-season testing that Mercedes-AMG Petronas exceeded 100 laps in a single day.
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