Mercedes warn Ferrari W10 'completely different' than pre-season in Barcelona

Valtteri Bottas says Mercedes' W10 feels "completely different" around the Circuit de Catalunya compared to pre-season testing after the Finn topped both practice sessions ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix on Friday. Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton was just half a tenth adrift of Bottas, with Ferrari three tenths down.

The Scuderia were the dominant team around the Barcelona track in pre-season, but that performance has abandoned them in the first four races of the season.

Mercedes have secured one-two finishes in all four races this season – a record-breaking start to a Formula 1 campaign – and looked well-set for a repeat performance this weekend.

"It's always an interesting day when you're bringing new parts to the car to get a feel for it and see if they bring the performance they should," Bottas said.

"The car felt really good today, completely different to how it was in winter testing, and it seems like our cornering performance has improved.

What we learned from Friday at the Spanish Grand PrixFP1 and FP2 analysed.Read more

"The balance around the lap is also better, so it looks like we've taken the right direction since the winter.

"Today was good, but it's only Friday and Ferrari are very close. It feels like we've made a good step forward, but we need to wait and see what tomorrow holds."

Hamilton admitted he found the car trickier to master, having complained of a struggle to get his tyres into the right condition across both sessions.

He said: "It was quite windy on track today and it was a bit tricky with the grip levels on the three different tyres, but we got through our programme and now have lots of data to analyse tonight and then fine tune the car for tomorrow.

"Everyone worked really hard to bring the new package here and a huge amount of effort has gone into it.

"It seems like it's working, but it's hard to feel it because this track is so different to the streets of Baku. We've got work to do with the balance, but it's been positive for us to be out there."

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