Nico Rosberg says he is unhappy with how his Mercedes has been set up despite setting the fastest time of testing so far on Friday.
On a soft tyre run, Rosberg set a time 1.2s quicker than the rest of the field on the second day of the final test, with his lap also 0.7s faster than the next best time at the Circuit de Catalunya this pre-season. However, the Mercedes spent nearly two hours in the garage after the lunch break as Rosberg wanted set-up changes made to address a balance issue and he says it shows Mercedes still has work to do.
“The set-up was actually very, very far away from where we need to be, and we don’t really understand that,” Rosberg said. “So the whole day we were chasing the set-up and trying to find the right direction. It was really difficult to understand the right way to go, I had a lot of oversteer in the car so the rear was just all over the place, poor traction and all these things.”
However, Rosberg admits his soft tyre lap time was always likely to be much quicker, coming late in the day as the team got on top of the problem.
“Eventually in the end it was feeling more and more decent, and then putting the soft tyres on gives us the grip anyways, so with the soft tyres it doesn't really matter where the balance is. More or less it would be possible to do a good lap, so I was pleased with my laps. They were both pretty much identical so it was OK, a good ending.”
And Rosberg admits he will not be happy just because Mercedes is quickest, saying he is not looking at its pace relative to its rivals.
“Today the car was not good at the rear so it was the opposite of planted. That’s my subjective opinion of course. It might like good from the outside compared to everybody else but I always want better and better and better, so it’s still work in progress.”
Full times and day two as it happened
Click here for the gallery from day two of the final test
