Lewis Hamilton says Ferrari have begun the new season in better shape than last year despite the drastic change in technical regulations.
The Ferrari driver, now in his second year at the team, drove their new SF-26 for the first time in dry conditions yesterday.
“When you come to the test, you always want to get a lot of mileage, and today I did 85 laps in the morning, which is amazing,” said Hamilton on Thursday. “That’s really down to all the people at the factory who have done such a great job to make sure the car, so far, is really reliable.
“Last year we had a worse start to testing. So considering this is a completely new band of rules, it’s better than we’ve experienced in the past. So I’m really hopeful that continues.”
His team mate Charles Leclerc took over the car in the afternoon, adding another 89 laps to Ferrari’s tally. However Hamilton said the conditions at the track were still too cool to get a feel for how the car was treating its tyres.
“It was nice to get out in the dry and do some running because obviously our first day was in the miserable wet weather,” he said. “Obviously I drove in Fiorano, [but that was] just one lap or two laps to kind of feel the car.
“So it was great to be able to get some running and understand the tyres. We did the C2 and the C1 [compounds] but it’s so cold that the tyres are not really working so much. But we got through our programme and got a bit of an understanding of where the car is at and where we need to improve.”
Ferrari will complete its third and final day of the first pre-season test today.
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