Mercedes have yet to dial their new power unit up to maximum revs according to Lewis Hamilton, who admitted the team had some performance in hand.
The Briton went third quickest on the opening day of the second pre-season test in Bahrain with a 1:37.908, one second slower than Nico Hulkenberg’s best lap.
Hamilton however isn’t worried and says they were still focussing on reliability over performance on Wednesday, but that focus will soon switch to outright speed.
“In the first test we were obviously just trying to get mileage on the car and not really focusing on any of the performance of the car,” he explained.
“We can [turn it up] if we need to, but we don’t need to right now,” he added. “I have no idea [how much by], there are so many different engine maps I don’t know which one it is; they just tell me to put it in one. But I’m told there is more…”
Despite a minor issue in the morning which limited his laps to 74, Hamilton was pleased with the cars reliability whilst many of Mercedes rivals are struggling.
“It’s very difficult to know where we are in terms of performance but in terms of going the distance we are there at the front. Of course when you take a step away and look at the whole picture we are the top of the mileage.
“I’m really happy with that because it’s down to all the hard work that everyone has put in at the factory and we’re going to just keep churning away.”
