Russell 'learned a huge amount' on 2020 tyres during test

Phillip van Osten 04/12/2019 at 16:43

George Russell says his day onboard Mercedes ' W10 allowed himself and the Silver Arrows outfit to gain a vast amount of knowledge on Pirelli's 2020 tyres.

Russell drove with Williams, his regular team, on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi before switching over to Mercedes for a full day of running on Wednesday during which he clocked in with the fastest time.

The Briton's best effort was done using Pirelli's softest 2020 compound.

"It's been a pleasure driving the championship-winning W10 today," said Russell.

"We tested the 2020 tyres and I've learned a huge amount about them which I'm sure will help both myself and the team going into next season, which is very positive."

Russell concludes Abu Dhabi post-season test on top

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin was equally satisfied with the team's day of work.

"The car has run faultlessly over the last two days which has allowed us to get through a lot of work," Shovlin said.

"We spent more time today working on getting the most out of the 2020 tyres and we have made good progress in understanding what they need in terms of set-up.

"We also completed a compound scan in the morning which gives us some data to select the tyres for the opening races and did some work on the softest compound - the C5 - on which George set his fastest lap.

"That's not quite it for the W10 as we will be converting Valtteri's race chassis over the next few days into the mule car to do our first 18-inch tyre development test for Pirelli."