- Jerez Test - Day One
Rosberg: Early comparisons to rivals pointless
Nico Rosberg says Mercedes achieved exactly what it wanted from its impressive first day of 2015 testing in Jerez but thinks it is pointless to make comparisons to its rivals so early.
Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel went fastest on the first day but Rosberg accumulated a massive 157 laps, more than double completed by anyone else on Sunday and a record for one day of a pre-season test. Mercedes dominated in 2014 and the first day of testing suggests it has wasted no time re-asserting its dominance this year, but Rosberg believes it is too early to look at what others are doing.
When asked if he felt Mercedes was already a step ahead of its rivals, Rosberg replied: "Ahead of the game? No, but we got off to a good start for ourselves - not comparing to anyone else because that's not possible at the moment. We can only judge in terms of what we wanted to achieve today and we've managed to achieve that, the laps we wanted to do and the pit stops at the end so for us that was a good start."
Rosberg is convinced Mercedes' rivals are going to come back strongly in 2015 and thinks it will be a while until the real performance of each team becomes apparent.
"We have Red Bull, for example, who just one year ago were the untouchable team, so you can expect them to very strong. Then you have Ferrari, then you have McLaren with Honda, then there's Williams who were right on our tail at the end of the season, they finished the season three seconds away from us and Lewis was pushing. In many ways we definitely expect our competitors to close the gap and we have a close eye on them and we hope we have done enough over the winter and made enough progress to stay ahead."
The 2014 Mercedes won 16 of 19 races but Rosberg says it is impossible to make an accurate assessment of its predecessor, even if his first impression was a good one.
"I can just say I have good feeling. There's no reason for it, no numbers for it today, no nothing, I can just say I have a good feeling because it's been a reliable day with no major problems and the car balance feels more or less decent. Of course it's not perfect and there's work to do and I look forward to doing that tonight to optimise it for tomorrow and then for my second day - it's just a good feeling."
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