Bottas relieved by Mercedes testing recovery

Valtteri Bottas has expressed his relief at Mercedes' ability to make up for three hours of lost time across the final two days of Formula 1 pre-season testing.

After completing just an installation lap on the opening morning in Bahrain, a gearshift problem confined Bottas to the garage for over three-hours as the team changed the gearbox.

In total, the Finn completed just six laps on Friday and whilst team-mate Lewis Hamilton managed to register 42 laps, this total was the third-fewest of the day - Mick Schumacher separating the pair on 15 after a gearbox change of his own.

Mercedes ended the test bottom of the lap charts with 303 but Bottas revealed the team was not far from completing its planned running.

“I feel like we made a decent recovery," Bottas said. "I can’t say that we fully achieved the mileage that we wanted to get in across the three days but it was actually not that far off.

“I feel like, on Saturday, we made 95 per cent the most out of it and, on Sunday, 100 per cent. We had a really solid day with a good amount of laps and quality laps and quality tests.

“Considering what happened on day one, how days two and three went I am pleased with that but now it is time to put that data into performance somehow in the next two weeks before the race.”

More worrying than its lack of laps was Mercedes apparent lack of pace, although the usual disclaimers associated with pre-season testing will have masked true performance, with fuel loads and engine modes among the unknown variables.

"It is so hard to say at the moment where we are, where other teams are and obviously we don’t know their run programme, what engine modes they are running, what kind of fuel load," the Finn added.

“But I have a feeling it is going to be close. That is all I can say.”

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