Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Rosberg completes Australian GP simulation

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Nico Rosberg completed a simulation of the Australian Grand Prix on Wednesday and says the W07 "feels great".

Mercedes has enjoyed almost flawless running throughout pre-season testing so far, with the team exceeding 1000 laps in total by the end of the sixth day. Rosberg took over from team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the afternoon and says he feels ready to race after completing a simulation of the season opener.

"It was another useful day of testing," Rosberg said. "I did a full Melbourne race simulation and I feel well prepared now for the first race. The team have done a great job so far both in the factory and here on track. The car feels great out there and I haven't had a major problem yet. I hope this will continue for the last two days."

Hamilton, on the other hand, was a little bit more reserved having completed qualifying simulations in the morning which saw him post a time 0.6s slower than Rosberg's best from the previous day.

"Reliability is our strength at the moment," Hamilton said. "The strength within the team has grown even further. It's really motivating for the season. The car was good, quite strong, we did some lower fuel running today but some work needs to be done balance wise. Getting onto the softer tyre was a good experience but we've got some work to do still."

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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.