Mercedes appear to be sticking to tradition by allowing Ferrari to sweep up the preseason accolades while Mercedes quietly toil out of the spotlight as they prime the W10 for the long campaign ahead at a time, so early in the season, when the stopwatch does not matter.
Lewis Hamilton was on morning duty for the Silver Arrows and despite ending the day tenth fastest and 1.7 seconds down on the top time set by Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari and almost half a second shy of teammate Valtteri Bottas who took over the car for the afternoon shift.
Nevertheless, Hamilton was satisfied with the 74 laps he did on the day, "It’s been a good day overall. It was quite cold in the morning, so switching the tyres on was a little bit tricky, but it seemed like a few people had similar issues. We were focusing on working through our run plan and we got through everything we wanted."
"It’s good that we’re getting in a lot of mileage and we will try to increase that over the next days as we continue to discover the characteristics of this car. That’s the exciting part about it – learning something new and being faced with different challenges."
"Everyone is working so diligently, I’m really happy to be here with everyone for the seventh year in a row and I’m excited for this journey that we’re embarking on," the PR speak suggests no panic, which in turn indicates that the World Champions have yet to turn it up to the maximum.
Bottas went on to add another 89 laps to the car's odometer, totalling a hefty 163 laps around the Spanish Grand Prix venue, more than any other car on day two of testing.
https://www.grandprix247.com/2019/02/19/barcelona-day-2-leclerc-has-good-first-day-for-ferrari/
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