- Barcelona Test - Day 1
Hamilton tests solutions for Rosberg's start issues
Part of Lewis Hamilton's testing programme at Barcelona on Tuesday was focused on solving a clutch issue team-mate Nico Rosberg has been struggling with at the start of recent races.
Hamilton was at the wheel of the W05 on Tuesday in Barcelona, but had his running limited by a wet morning before working on engine management and aero evaluations as well as practice starts in the afternoon. Ahead of the test team boss Toto Wolff revealed that Rosberg was struggling with starts and that Mercedes had made it a "special project" to get to the bottom of the issue.
"On the starts we have a problem on Nico's car," Wolff said. "It seems to be a problem related to the clutch. That is a special project of ours; we expected some improvement for Barcelona which didn't kick in as expected. We just need to sort it out for Monaco because that's crucial there and we discussed it in the debrief."
After testing on Tuesday, Hamilton said he had been working on the issue ahead of Monaco where a start can make all the difference.
"The start at every race is important, but Nico's been a little bit unhappy with some of the starts and as a team we have been okay but it could be better. We were really trying to focus on that to see if we could improve it."
Hamilton said the weather and track conditions meant there was not much point in working on set-up.
"Today was kind of a non-eventful day really. There was nothing that a test driver couldn't do and I was just putting in laps really and working on the starts. We didn't really change much and the track conditions and temperatures were different so there isn't really much you can compare to the weekend."
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