Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes is “still the team to beat” as he led the way during the opening day of pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Hamilton shared driving duties with Valtteri Bottas, taking over from his team-mate for the afternoon session, and set a time of 1:21.765 to finish 0.113s clear of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel.
Mercedes also accumulated the most mileage on the first day of running, with Hamilton completing 73 laps, to add to the 79 amassed by Bottas.
“It's been a good day, a really positive day for the team,” said Hamilton.
“The car looks fantastic and it feels great. We did lots of laps and collected loads of information today, so we can try to improve the car as we move forward.
“We've not done any work to get the balance perfect yet, as today was all about ticking off the list of checkpoints and racking up mileage.
“Over the next few days we'll start to look to improve the car.
“I still think we're the team to beat – but we have a lot of work ahead of us to do, the same as every single team on the grid.
“Right now we're just focusing on our own job to do the very best that we can.”
Bottas ultimately wound up in sixth position, courtesy of his time set during the morning session.
“We worked on long-runs, trying to gain all the information we could from these conditions,” he said.
“We didn't really care at all about lap times today. As a team we still have many more important days ahead of us.
“The main thing to do is to get the mileage in and the car had no issues. The guys have done an amazing job over the winter.
“I only started just over a month ago, but the way the car has been running is impressive. It's a good feeling.”
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