Lewis Hamilton is not worried about his inauspicious start to pre-season testing in Bahrain, despite the 36-year-old struggling to get on top of the W12 E Performance.
Hamilton had a dramatic spin on Saturday morning, completing 58 laps during the session with a best lap time of 1.33.399.
Gear box issues and the dusty conditions have limited the team’s running for much of the weekend, with some concerns developing about the new car’s rear end stability.
However, Valtteri Bottas appeared far more comfortable driving the Mercedes as he topped the afternoon session with the best time of testing so far, a positive sign for the seven-time world champion going into the last day on Sunday.
“I’ve done 60 laps, something like that, so it’s not a lot compared to other test days we would normally have,” Hamilton said following his run on Saturday morning.
“But we’re trying to be as efficient as we can be. We have less mileage than some of the others like the Red Bulls so far. But we’re just trying to stick to our programme and manage the amount of laps we have also and try to be as efficient as we can.
“It’s day two of testing so we’re just focusing on doing our job. So nowhere near at the moment, we’re just focusing on trying to understand our car. There’s no point in getting worried just yet.”
(Additional Reporting: Agnes Carlier)