• Jerez Test, Day Three

Reliability problems were 'massively unlucky' - Rosberg

Nico Rosberg: "We were pounding round the laps very consistently" © Sutton Images

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• Drivers:
• Nico Rosberg

• Teams:
• Mercedes

Nico Rosberg said his monster test day in the new Mercedes on Thursday has made up for some of the lost time caused by reliability issues on the first two days at Jerez.

Rosberg completed 148 laps on Thursday after Mercedes lost the majority of the first two test days to reliability issues. On Tuesday Rosberg suffered a problem with the car's wiring loom and then team-mate Lewis Hamilton crashed out when he lost brake pressure after just 15 laps.

Rosberg is confident Mercedes has now turned a page with the new car and he said he is starting to understand its strengths and weaknesses.

"Today it was very reliable for sure and on the first two days I think we were just massively unlucky," he said. "They were problems that were a) quite small things and b) things that you weren't able to solve them in one day, so it was very unlucky. They just came about in a terrible way but today was fantastic and it really put a smile on everyone's faces in the garage. That's a massive achievement to drive from Silverstone to Spa, distance wise, in one test day with no problems whatsoever.

"We were pounding round the laps very consistently and I'm feeling good because I have a very good feel with the car. I can push straight away, it feels very comfortable. Of course there is still work to be done, I have some balance problems, especially too much understeer, so that we need to work on."

He said reliability would be a focus over the next two tests as well as working with the team's factory in Brackley to move things forward.

"We need to do kilometres and kilometres just to make sure there are no problems, but today there didn't appear to be any problems at all," he said. "Then it's just a matter of fine tuning what we have and also medium-term telling the factory what our main problem is because at the moment I'm struggling a bit with the front end and it's really important to describe that to the factory in more detail."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.