Hamilton praises 'monumental effort' from Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton praised Mercedes' "monumental effort" following another impressive day of testing for the defending champions.

With Nico Rosberg carrying out qualifying-style runs in the morning session which eventually saw him top the times, Hamilton was tasked with a race simulation in the afternoon of the first day of the final test. Having completed 90 laps in second half of the day, Hamilton was full of praise for the work Mercedes has done so far.

"It was a great afternoon of running with great mileage," Hamilton said. "We did a race simulation and after that I feel I'm ready for race one. The car is feeling great and was consistent all day.

"It's been a monumental effort from this team to get the car to where it is today. I'm truly grateful to everyone for every bit of work they have put in so far."

Once again Mercedes completed the most mileage in a day despite the driver change, with the W07 amassing a total of 172 laps on Tuesday. Hamilton will remain in the car on Wednesday morning before handing back over to Rosberg.

REPORT: Mercedes starts to show pace on day one of final test

GALLERY: Second Barcelona Test

AS IT HAPPENED: Second 2016 pre-season F1 test from Barcelona

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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.

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