Silverstone Test – Day One British Grand Prix 2014

MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS began the third in-season test of 2014 at the Silverstone International Circuit today, with Nico Rosberg taking the wheel of the F1 W05 Hybrid for the first of two days’ running this week. Nico’s best time of 1:35.573 from 90 laps put him third on the time sheets.

• Today’s programme focussed on aero testing, brake cooling evaluations and engine system checks, plus set-up work.
• The team was also able to test some practice starts and run strategy checks for ERS.
• Pirelli’s hard and medium compound dry tyres were used in the morning, the medium again in the afternoon
• Nico emerged for his first run at 09:00 local time, with his car being the first to take to the circuit.
• Mercedes-Benz Power Units today completed a total of 1,660 km between all teams

Nico Rosberg

It’s been a good day today. It’s so valuable to do these test days; over a race weekend it’s rare to get two runs in the day that are the same as tyres are getting old and conditions change but here we can always use new tyres, so we can really do some setup work that we don’t normally get to do. It was very useful and we learned a lot today.

We will be able to use this information going into the next race. The British crowd has been brilliant this week and, even though they were cheering for Lewis, they showed a lot of respect for me and it was great to see the fantastic atmosphere they brought over the whole weekend. I’m now looking forward to taking our dominant Silver Arrow to Germany and racing at Hockenheim.