Pascal Wehrlein relished the opportunity to secure more experience “in all conditions”, despite poor weather preventing Mercedes from carrying out its full programme on the opening day of the post-Austrian Grand Prix test.
The defending champions made a last-minute change to their driver line-up, which resulted in Wehrlein getting a late call up to replace Nico Rosberg in the W06 Hybrid.
While the Mercedes reserve went on topping the timesheets, heavy rain in the morning and a late-session drizzle meant running at the Red Bull Ring was limited.
“Because of the weather it was not possible to do all the programme that we wanted to do,” said Wehrlein. “Actually we only did three runs on the slick tyre, which is not a lot.”
“We did some long runs. We did some wet-weather runs, some intermediate runs. Really it was a mixed day. It was good to get experience in all conditions, but definitely for the test programme it was not the best day.”
Although Wehrlein is scheduled to run again at Spielberg on Wednesday with Mercedes customer team Force India, the DTM race winner already looks ahead and hints at a potential race seat in F1 next year .
“Both [Mercedes] drivers have a contract for next year. Definitely I hope to get some days in the car or to drive in the championship but I think with Mercedes at the moment it’s not possible.”
Click here for pictures from the opening day of in-season testing in Austria
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