Just when Mercedes couldn’t get much more dominant, the team is warning of further improvements to come from the W10.
Valtteri Bottas almost matched his pole time on the first of a two-day test in Barcelona in Tuesday, posting a 1m15.5s albeit with the help of Pirelli’s softest tyre.
“Today’s test day has been really good,” the Finn said. “We completed a lot of laps and learned a lot.
“Our program focused on tyres and setup. We collected lots of data over the race weekend in similar conditions to what we had today in terms of temperature and wind, so it was nice to do some setup comparisons.
“Everyone did a really good job after a long weekend, so it’s been another successful day.”
Then it was revealed that the car he was driving was made up of multiple upgrades as the development race continues.
“We’ve had a number of developments on the chassis and power unit side which we can hopefully bring to the race car over the next few races,” Mercedes chief engineer Andrew Shovlin explained.
“We’ve also done some work on setup for the softer compounds that will be appearing in Monaco and Montreal, along with some longer run work.”
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This after Mercedes boss Toto Wolff claimed there is still room for improvement with the already class-leading W10.
“There are steps on the power to come, but with mature regulations, it’s not those immense steps that we have seen in the past. But still, some really good work that is being done for engine number two,” the Austrian told Motorsport.com.
“In terms of unleashing more performance of the chassis, I think we still have good ideas. It’s still just the fifth race with these new regulations and more potential to unlock.
“This is also why we decided to go that way. We felt that with the front wing concept we have followed there is more potential long-term, maybe with the risk of a short-term struggle.”
