Hamilton felt he 'could do another 100 laps' after marathon morning

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Lewis Hamilton felt he "could do another 100 laps" in the Mercedes despite already managing 106 during a busy morning on Thursday.

After setting the fastest time on the first day of testing in Barcelona, the world champions focused on long runs on Day 2, with Lewis' best time only good enough for ninth place.

But even after being the marathon man in the first four hours of running, Hamilton admits he wanted more.

"It's been another beautiful day here in Barcelona and we got some great mileage on the new car today," he declared.

"As a team, we completed a race run in the morning, which is great for reliability and shows the foundation we are starting on.

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"This is probably the first day ever, that I can remember, where I finished a test session and wanted to continue.

"We had 20 minutes left and I wanted us to maximise and do more laps, but we'd ran out of tyres!

"It felt good today and I felt physically fantastic. To get through a race run and still feel at the end of it that I could do another 100 laps is a good feeling."

The afternoon was a slightly different story, as Valtteri Bottas saw his attempted simulation ended by an electrical issue.

"Obviously running was cut short because of an issue, which made the day a bit trickier," the Finn said.

“It was a good day of learning more about the car. We got some good mileage in and I almost completed a full race simulation.

“So, there was a lot of good experience gained from that and lots of data for us to investigate ahead of tomorrow.

“The car felt good and I'm looking forward to continuing the running tomorrow morning, hopefully we will have a clean day.”

Throughout the day, attention was focused on the Brackley-based team for something entirely different, however, as they debuted an innovative DAS steering system.

The device, spotted on onboard footage, showed the front tyres toeing in when the driver pulled the steering wheel towards him on the straights.

"We also had an interesting day activating the DAS system for the first time and we are on a voyage of discovery with the drivers to learn about the system and see what it can bring us for the season ahead," Mercedes technical director Allison commented.

"We're now looking forward to the final day of the first test tomorrow and continuing to work through the tasks we have to clear before Melbourne."

 

         

 

 

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