Michael Schumacher had a "very productive day" in the updated Mercedes © Sutton Images
Michael Schumacher subscribes to the paddock consensus that Red Bull is leading the way in pre-season testing, but is confident Mercedes' plans are on track.
"We clearly know that Red Bull is very strong and that is the one you have to look at," he told reporters at testing in Barcelona. "At the moment I guess we are not quite in this position, but I was not expecting to be in that position right now and the season is long. We have a big question mark of who is coming behind [Red Bull] and I hope we play a sufficient role in that."
Schumacher completed his first day at the wheel of the updated Mercedes W02 on Thursday, which features a new exhaust configuration and revised bodywork. He said the car was now making the progress the team expected of it.
"We've had a very productive day and completed a reasonable amount of mileage," he said. "We were able to check and confirm a lot of things on the set-up of the car with the new upgrade package, and my initial impressions are certainly positive. Reliability work being finished in the other test, we are just concentrating on setting-up the car, fine-tuning it and understanding it to the last details."
And he confirmed the reliability issues at previous tests were no longer an issue.
"We are not concerned about any reliability to be quite honest," he said. "We have had some [concerns], but that is why you build a new car, you go testing and you develop it and get it sorted out and that is what we are doing."
Credit: ESPN F1 (en.espnf1.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment