Rosberg keeps Mercedes on top in Bahrain as Red Bull’s 2014 lemon falters again

MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS concluded the second pre-season test at the Bahrain International Circuit today, with Nico Rosberg taking the wheel of the F1 W05 for the final day. Nico's time of 1:33.283 topped the timesheets and proved to be the fastest lap of the four-day test.

The team's program consisted of shorter runs this morning, followed by a race simulation in the afternoon.

However, they suffered from two red flag stoppages for their car, both for different reasons but neither of which are insurmountable. Overall, the team was happy with the lap count and the work achieved this week, and look forward to the final test. All the teams will be back to continue their pre-season program in Bahrain next week with the third and final test beginning on February 27th.

It was another disaster test day for Red Bull. The final day of the first of two pre-season tests in Bahrain saw Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo post 15 laps as the team's running was hampered by issues discovered during the morning session.

"In all honesty it wasn't a great day today," said Daniel. "I guess we still need more time. We have four more days coming up and hopefully we can maximize those. I have to say that on the run we did today the car did feel better. But unfortunately another problem arose and we couldn't exploit that potential. I hope we can do more running next week. I'm happy I'm doing the first two days. At this stage we just need laps and I'm just hanging to get back in the car."

Nico Rosberg
We can be very pleased with the first test in Bahrain this week. We completed a lot of mileage and learnt more about the car with every lap we achieved. This morning we were able to try some qualifying practice runs which felt good, meaning I could attack the lap a bit as I found a good balance. Later in the day we did a race simulation, which was crucial to learn all the new things in the car. There was a lot of feedback from the engineers, so my head was full of information! We suffered with an issue at the end of the day which ended our program slightly early. There is still some way to go for us to manage the reliability before Melbourne as this will play a huge factor in the early races, but we're hopeful that we can make another step towards achieving this next week.

Paddy Lowe
The final day of the test today saw us complete some lower fuel runs on softer tires to get a series of one-lap simulations under our belt. We were happy with how the car responded to this program. We then moved onto a race distance that we were able to complete, albeit with a pause in the middle for a red flag. It was pleasing to be able to complete that amount of running without any problems in the car. We attempted a further test program at the end of the day but an issue halted that earlier than we hoped, meaning our day ended there. It's been a very positive week but we still have a lot of work to do next week to be prepared in time for Melbourne. A great job so far by the whole team trackside and back at Brackley and Brixworth.