Nico Rosberg says his fastest time during the first day of testing at Barcelona came despite a focus on next weekend's Monaco Grand Prix.
Sunday saw Rosberg take his first victory of the season in Spain, while he also ended Lewis Hamilton's run of pole positions during qualifying. Rosberg was again in action at the Circuit de Catalunya on Tuesday as he set the fastest time by over two seconds, and he says the team was focusing on optimising the car for the next race in Monte Carlo.
"We tried a few things for Monaco, because in the last sector of this track there are many slow corners that are useful for that goal, so we did quite a few runs with low fuel and everything went well," Rosberg said.
"We also made the car softer than before, to simulate the conditions we’ll have in Monaco and it was very positive. And we tried new solutions for other races. Today it was important to try new solutions and improve the car, because Ferrari is very close to us and we need to improve."
And Rosberg called on Mercedes not to get complacent having appeared to extend its advantage over Ferrari during the Spanish Grand Prix.
"They were close but, yes, we managed to pull away again and we need to keep going in this direction. It was important to increase the gap and show we can beat them in the development race."
Click here for Tuesday's gallery from testing at the Circuit de Catalunya
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