Bottas hoping for better fortunes after difficult day in Barcelona

Mercedes was dogged by reliability problems on Tuesday, something it hopes will not continue heading into day two in Barcelona.

Published : Feb 27, 2019 01:05 IST

Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas was limited to only seven trips around the Circuit de Catalunya circuit due to an oil pressure fault.
Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas was limited to only seven trips around the Circuit de Catalunya circuit due to an oil pressure fault.
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Mercedes' Valtteri Bottas was limited to only seven trips around the Circuit de Catalunya circuit due to an oil pressure fault.

Valtteri Bottas hopes Wednesday will bring better fortunes for Mercedes after his first chance to try out the Silver Arrows' new aerodynamic package was cut short. 

After Lewis Hamilton completed 83 laps in Tuesday's morning session in Barcelona, Bottas was limited to only seven trips around the Circuit de Catalunya circuit due to an oil pressure fault. 

The Finnish driver broke down soon after leaving the pit lane but was able to get back out. 

Now he hopes day two of the second week of testing brings more track time as they continue to tweak their car ahead of next month's opening race of the season in Melbourne.

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"Unfortunately, after four days of flawless reliability last week, I spent most of the day waiting as we had an oil pressure issue on my first out lap and had to change the power unit," he said. 

"But I'm glad I still got to do a few laps, the team did a really good job to get the car out again; it was important to get a bit of a feel for the new aero package.

"My running was obviously very limited, but it seems like we've made improvements. We need to review everything in more detail tonight and I'm looking forward to continuing our programme tomorrow morning."

Technical director James Allison added: "It was not exactly the day we hoped for, running for the first time with the bodywork kit that we expect to use in Melbourne, with a large part of the day lost to an oil pressure issue at lunchtime.

"Nevertheless, either side of that problem we did do some useful things, finding that the car behaves a little differently with the new package.

"We're looking forward very much to have a trouble-free day tomorrow to get a better feel for what it can do."

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