Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas expressed encouragement over the team’s start to the Austrian Grand Prix weekend, after leading both sessions.
Hamilton headed the pair of 90-minute practice sessions in overcast conditions at the Red Bull Ring, while Valtteri Bottas backed up his team-mate by placing second.
Mercedes has not been beaten at the Red Bull Ring since the circuit returned to the calendar in 2014.
“It's been a good day so far – pretty straightforward with no real issues,” said Hamilton.
“There are not many corners here in Austria; it's a very fast track and it's very close between all the tyres. The harder tyre seems to be the better for me.
“It's really great to see the updates; the guys at the factory have been working so hard to bring quality components.
“The car feels better in certain areas around the track which is already a step forward from last week.
“The car felt immediately better coming out of the garage in FP1 and also at the start at FP2. It got a little worse during the afternoon session and we will try to figure out why in the debrief.
“But the car does feel good overall, so I'm sure we can rectify it. I'm going to keep pushing, trying to maximise a bit more out of it.”
Added Bottas: “It's been a good start to the weekend; we tried our new updates today and the initial feeling is that they work well.
“The team has done a really good job delivering the updates; every single person in the team has worked really hard on them. It worked exactly as expected which is down to all the hard work behind the scenes.
“Especially the rear end of the car was really stable today. Last year I had severe blistering on the rear left tyre which could potentially be an issue again as it is going to be warmer again this Sunday.
“So it's good that the rear felt stable today; however, we do still have a bit of balance work to do to get the most out of the car.”
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