Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton is happy with his progress across an ‘interesting’ first pre-season test ahead of the 2022 F1 season.
Hamilton spent the opening two days focused on characterisation and set-up preparations amidst a brief sensor issue but saved his absolute maximum for the final day in Barcelona, Spain, as he finished the test as the fastest overall driver with 1m 19.138 on C5 tyre compound.
Reflecting bullishly on his three days of pre-season testing at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Hamilton commented: “It’s been an interesting few days, it’s not been the easiest or smoothest running – we have some obstacles to overcome.”
Hamilton though wishes that he had more laps after manging 94 laps on the final day in Spain but noted the difference in driveability, as he added: “The car is a lot different to drive than in previous years, as are the tyres, but we’re working our way through our programme.”
With a fortnight to analyse the data ahead of the second pre-season test in Bahrain between 10-12 March, Hamilton has vowed to knuckle down and ensure that progress is made once Mercedes “put in the work.”
George Russell finished the first test just 0.095 seconds shy of Hamilton as the second fastest driver overall, yet he felt that the first test was “incredibly intriguing” but not “very representative” of the true pace across the grid.
Russell though has singled out Ferrari and McLaren as Mercedes’ likeliest “strong” title rivals this season but feels that there is “lots of improvements to make,” particularly with the car balance and other issues as he vowed to learn from some experiments this week.
Mercedes’ Trackside Engineering Director, Andrew Shovlin meanwhile is “pleased” with how the test has unfolded with “good progress” across both the car and power unit, which has completed 1800km without any major difficulties.
Shovlin also insisted that the team has learned plenty of lessons from this test and will conduct a thorough analysis ahead of Bahrain, although he believes that there will be a huge evolution in the coming months.
“The rate of progression is going to be very high for all teams and whilst we look to be in a good place here, we need to be mindful that our competitors may have a lot of performance to come between now and the first race.”
Shovlin concluded by confirming that both Hamilton and Russell will be in the driver simulator over the next few days to focus on car balance across both single lap and long run pace, although he noted that Bahrain will bring hotter temperatures in the second pre-season test.
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