Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Rosberg: Ferrari pace 'an eye-opener'

Nico Rosberg admits Ferrari's performance has been "an eye-opener" for Mercedes during the first test.

Sebastian Vettel was fastest on the first two days of pre-season testing at Jerez, with the Ferrari-powered Sauber second fastest. Day three saw Sauber's Felipe Nasr on top ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, and Rosberg says Mercedes knows it will have to be on its toes in order to maintain the advantage it held in 2014.

“We’ve come a long way now as a team,” Rosberg said. “We’re a strong team. Of course we’re keeping an eye on the opposition and especially Ferrari has been an eye-opener for us over the last couple of days. Still, we’re confident that we can start the season well and also in terms of development, be strong.”

Having completed another 151 laps on Tuesday despite having caused one red flag, Rosberg says there have been issues that needed fixing throughout the day.

“There was telemetry, so the car not sending data back to the team when I’m out there which is always a bit of a risk. Then there was some fuel issue so the engine switched off while I was on my in lap but also that was easy to fix, and then a few other things.”

Click here for the full gallery from day three of testing at Jerez

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.