Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsSauber

Sauber happy to be 1.3s off Mercedes - Nasr

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Felipe Nasr says Sauber will be happy if it gets to the first race of the season and is 1.3s slower than Mercedes.

Nico Rosberg set the pace on the second day of the final pre-season test in Barcelona, going comfortably clear of the rest of the field on soft tyres. Nasr completed a race simulation on Friday but also managed to put in a soft tyre lap that was 1.3s off Rosberg’s time and he says Sauber will be happy if the gap is the same come Melbourne.

“It was a very productive day for me, and the most important thing for me right now is to get as much mileage as I can in the car and feel comfortable,” Nasr said. “We managed to work on a full program, doing fast laps in the morning with the medium and soft compounds and in the afternoon we completed a race simulation, with starts, pit stops, etc.

“I feel that the car is evolving every day and we are working in the right direction. The car has shown consistent and it's responding the way we expected it to be.

“I don’t want to get too excited, but being realistic we are much better than we were last year. We still don't know where we are compared to the competition, but we made a step forward.

“Mercedes’ time does not surprise us to be honest. If we are 1.3 seconds behind them in Australia we will be happy, as it is half what we had last year. But we will only know that when we get there.”

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Driver line-ups for the final test

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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.