Hamilton completes 101 laps on day 3 in Barcelona

(© Ben Johnston 2015)

Reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton was back in action for the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team where he racked up 100 laps for the Brackley based outfit.

The double world champion carried out suspension and aerodynamic work for the Silver Arrows at the Barcelona Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday and ended the day in third place with a fastest time of 1m 26.076s.

Speaking following the days’ action Hamilton stated:

‘Just like yesterday, there have been better days in terms of how I’m feeling. I’m definitely not 100% and I’m looking forward to going home tonight and sleeping for the next couple of days! It was a hard day out there physically – but I’ll make sure I’m better for next week and come back stronger. I’m glad I got some good time in the car today with 101 laps. 

The guys here and back at the factory are working incredibly hard to make sure we get as much mileage as we can, so a big thanks to them. We weren’t looking for a quick lap – just driving round looking at setup changes. If the weather had been better we would have had more mileage but we got through everything we wanted to today anyway. 

All things considered it’s been a great day. The biggest issue at the moment is actually getting the tyres working properly. There’s temperature in them but they just don’t seem to ever be in the operating window. Hopefully when we see warmer temperatures they’ll be better. 

The car itself feels solid and we’ve been good on reliability. There are areas we can improve on – but we’re taking it one step at a time and each step so far has been forwards, not backwards, so it’s been quite positive.'

Nico Rosberg is set to complete the test tomorrow while Hamilton will be back in action next week for the final test.

© Ben Johnston 2015