Mercedes say they completed more laps than they expected to over their first two days of running in this week’s test.

The team ran its new W17 on Monday and Wednesday at the Circuit de Catalunya. Teams are allowed to run on no more than three of the first five days and Mercedes chose to remain in their garage when rain fell on Tuesday.

After completing their second day of running on Wednesday, Mercedes’ head of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin said “on mileage we’re a bit ahead of where we’d hoped to be, so that’s good.”

Mercedes previously completed a shakedown test with their car at Silverstone last week. Shovlin said they were pleased by the lack of problems they had encountered with the new chassis and power unit.

“You normally expect to have a few teething problems, the odd reliability thing that costs you track time,” said Shovlin. “Today the car worked faultlessly.

“We’re actually losing more track time from other people breaking down and causing red flags than for anything on our side, so that’s good.

“In terms of data gathered, we’re getting there, but as all the electrical systems are new there’s still quite a few issues that we’re bottoming out with, collecting the data and making sure everything’s as accurate as we normally have it. But we had a long list of objectives and if anything we’re slightly ahead of where we expected to be on day two.”

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and

Drivers George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli completed 334 laps over the first two days, equivalent to five grand prix distances around the Spanish track. Shovlin said they have given good feedback about how the W17 handles.

Antonelli and Russell are “happy with the car”

“They’re happy with the car,” said Shovlin. “It’s a nicer thing to drive than the previous regulations. It’s a bit lighter, it turns quite nicely for them. We’ve got a decent balance at low and high speed.

“But ultimately whether they’re happy or not will come down to whether they’re quick or not. I think we’ll start to see what people can do maybe on that final day but realistically that work’s going to push into Bahrain.”

Mercedes will complete its third and final day of running in this week’s test today. “On the final day we’re going to get stuck into a bit of set-up work, trying to just explore what we can do with the tools available, try and get the car dialled in a bit better, working on the softer range of the tyres,” said Shovlin. “We’ll do a bit of that with both [drivers].

“That’ll then give us a load of information to take back to analyse ahead of Bahrain. We can do more work with the race drivers on the simulator making sure that correlates well but if [Thursday] goes as well as [Wednesday] did and the first day it’ll have been a very good test.”

Miss nothing from RaceFans

Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:

Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and

Formula 1

Browse all Formula 1 articles