Mercedes driver and former seven time world champion Michael Schumacher has disclosed that tyre degradation is a field where his team has to improve. He also admitted that few of Mercedes’ primary rivals were getting better mileage out of the tyre.
During Friday’s testing, Schumacher completed seventy-nine laps, registering his best time late in the day, on the very first flying lap of one of many short runs on the soft compound tyre of Pirelli. In the same 8 lap stint, however, Michael Schumacher, registered the quickest time, he almost lost four seconds, the first 2 seconds lost within 5 laps.
Though Michael Schumacher played down his team’s tyre usage, yet he pointed out this problem as an area of improvement before the season opener Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. He told that he really does not know where their team is compared to others, but he has seen some can do much better. Therefore, Mercedes can improve for sure.
In spite of causing 2 red flags during morning’s running, the former world champion was cheerful at the end of the day, saying that Mercedes has worked through their whole Friday program. He also added that in the morning. It was slightly a slow start. They stopped twice and had some other red flag issues, but the afternoon session was straightforward. His team made most of the work what they needed to do. Therefore, it is fine. The German finished the day as 8th fastest, just behind Romain Grosjean’s benchmark time.
On Friday morning, the German took the charge for his off-track excusion, but added that his team ended their second testing day quite happily at Barcelona. He finished just nineteen laps before lunch, holding back on track at turn 8 quite early in the session before creating a error at turn 5 later and landing the Mercedes in the gravel. Now, he has just one more day for testing ahead of the first race in Australia.
