The Barcelona in-season test concluded on Wednesday, with Valtteri Bottas taking over the reins of the Mercedes-AMG F1 W09 EQ Power+. The Finn completed 139 laps in total and ended the day at the top of the timesheets. One of the main priorities in his morning session was a series of aerodynamic test items. Later the focus switched to shorter runs.
In the afternoon, Bottas moved onto longer runs. The Finn set his best time of 1:16.904 on the supersoft tyre shortly before the lunch break.
“Today was really interesting and we got through our programme fairly smoothly. We had a good baseline from last weekend and used it to work on different set-ups, trying out bigger changes than we normally would on a race weekend”, Bottas commented.
“We also tried to gather some information on the tyres, as we will see similarly smooth tarmac at Silverstone and Paul Ricard. I enjoyed being back in the car today, I’m looking forward to being back in action next week in Monaco.”
Bottas fastest on the second test day at Catalunya
Chief engineer Andrew Shovlin added:
“We’ve had Valtteri in the car today and have had another very useful day of testing, with the car running faultlessly throughout. We had a fairly similar programme to Lewis, using the early part of the day to do a number of the aerodynamic test items, then getting into a programme of short-run work before lunch and longer runs in the afternoon.”
“There were a few cars that stopped on track in the afternoon causing red flags, which does impact on your plans. But, we have been able to complete almost all the important work we had planned and have made some good progress in further understanding the car and tyres. We have a very busy few days coming up, finishing our analysis from the race and test and getting stuck into preparations for Monaco to ensure we are ready for its unique challenges.”
#F1Testing = DONE! @ValtteriBottas leads the way ?@LandoNorris in P3 for @McLarenF1 ?#F1 pic.twitter.com/YKkweRsEO6
— Formula 1 (@F1) May 16, 2018
