Lewis Hamilton suggested there was an improvement to his Mercedes after a series of upgrades were introduced to begin the Barcelona test.
Running the specification that will race in Melbourne next month, it was hoped the German manufacturer would offer a more optimistic outlook after their steady start last week.
Instead, both Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas remained towards the bottom of the timesheet, with the world champion offering the same message of day-by-day progress.
“We got through our run programme and the car was feeling relatively good,” Hamilton commented.
“It was an improvement from last week which is a good step, and the tyres are also working a better now that the track temperature is a bit higher.
“We have to continue to analyse everything and keep pushing.”
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Lewis’ optimism couldn’t be shared by teammate Bottas, however, as he was restricted to just seven laps in the afternoon, disrupting plans to conduct back-to-back tests with the new updates.
“Unfortunately, after four days of flawless reliability last week, I spent most of the day waiting as we had an oil pressure issue on my first out-lap and had to change the power unit,” the Finn explained.
“But I’m glad I still got to do a few laps, the team did a really good job to get the car out again; it was important to get a bit of a feel for the new aero package.
“My running was obviously very limited, but it seems like we’ve made improvements,” Bottas noted. “We need to review everything in more detail tonight and I’m looking forward to continuing our programme tomorrow morning.”
