Although the seven-time world champion set the fastest times on the last day of filming, the three days of action were not easy for his team.
The Germans in particular have struggled with the ‘ porpoising ‘ phenomenon that most teams have faced, to a greater or lesser extent, and still have to work to find a suitable solution ahead of the upcoming Bahrain tests.
After the good feelings that Ferrari and McLaren have had in the week of testing in Barcelona, Hamilton said that Mercedes has not had a perfect few days.
However, he commented that the reliability of the car has been good, and that they are constantly working on the tasks that remain to be fulfilled: “These have been some interesting days. They have not been the easiest, nor the most constant, we have had some obstacles to overcome.”
“But we’ve overcome a lot of things and of course we always want to do more laps, but I’m happy with today. I think I’ve done almost 100 laps today, which for a half day session isn’t too bad.”
“[We are] a bit behind from the last two days. The car is very different to previous years to drive, as are the tyres, but we are working on it.”
Hamilton said the most important thing for Mercedes was to assimilate the lessons of this week’s testing back to the factory before they start shooting in Bahrain : “The whole team has done an incredible job this week, the men and women of the factory have done an incredible effort.”
“So we just have to download all this data and analyze it however we can next week,” he explained.
With teams familiarizing themselves with the new cars for 2022, and with no one doing laps in pursuit of high performance, Hamilton said it was pointless trying to figure out who had the advantage at the moment.
“You never do it in the first week, ever,” he said. “We have no idea where each one is.”
