Hamilton hails Mercedes’ ‘really fantastic’ week

Lewis Hamilton happy to get a jump on Red Bull

Lewis Hamilton has described Mercedes' week in Jerez as a "really fantastic start" to their year as the Silver Arrows outfit seek to end Red Bull's four-season domination of F1.

While Mercedes, who rescheduled their driver schedule for the final day to include Hamilton after Nico Rosberg completed a race simulation in the morning, laid down another 132 laps on Friday to take their four-day tally to a mammoth best-of-the-field 309, the World Champions packed up their bags and left for home just after lunchtime after managing a paltry total of just 21 laps in their overheating RB10.

While Rosberg was at pains to point out that the Jerez test had been a challenge of reliability and the W05 had not yet been tested for outright pace, Hamilton's delight with Mercedes' successful and largely trouble-free sprint out of the box was abundantly clear.

"It has been an amazing week," enthused the 2008 World Champion, who suffered the one notable alarm of Mercedes' test when a front-wing failure sent him spiraling into the barriers on Day One.

"To get the amount of mileage we have has been very encouraging. The biggest positive we can take from here is that the car is reliable.

"We aren't focused on anyone else, we're just focused on ourselves and trying to improve. We want as much data as we can and as much miles as we can.

"We're just taking one step at a time. It's been fantastic, really fantastic."

While the discrepancy between the amount of track time enjoyed by Mercedes and Red Bull at Jerez ultimately proved the central feature of the event, Hamilton, like Rosberg, says the Brackley outfit are not paying attention to the stark travails of their rivals.

"We aren't focused on anyone else, we're just focused on ourselves and trying to improve. We want as much data as we can and as much miles as we can. We're just taking one step at a time," Hamilton added. Sky Sports