Michael Schumacher has revealed that tyre degradation is an area where Mercedes must improve, as well as admitting that some of the team's chief rivals were getting better mileage out of the Pirelli rubber.
Schumacher completed 79 laps during Friday's testing, setting his best time late in the day, on the first flying lap of one of several short runs on Pirelli's soft compound tyre.
However, in the same eight-lap stint as the German set his quickest time, he lost almost four seconds, the first two seconds lost within five laps.
While Schumacher played down the Mercedes' tyre usage, he did point it out as an area for improvement before the Australian Grand Prix.
"The best is if you have [no degradation]," he said. "Everybody has some. I don't know where we are compared to the others, but I have seen some can do better. So, certainly, we can improve."
Despite causing two red flags during the morning's running, Schumacher was upbeat at the end of the day, claiming that the team had worked through its entire Friday programme.
"It was a bit of a slow start in the morning," he added. "We stopped twice ourselves, and had other red flag issues, but the afternoon was straightforward. We made most of the work we needed to do, so it's okay."
Schumacher wound out the day eighth fastest, 1.3s behind Romain Grosjean's
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Nico Rosberg is confident that Mercedes will be able to "annoy" Red Bull Racing and McLaren early in the season, after his pre-season testing programme wrapped up at Barcelona today.
Rosberg will not drive the new W03 again until it arrives in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix, having completed his two days of testing at Barcelona. But the German is convinced that the team is in a position to improve on its fourth place finish in the 2011 constructors' championship.
"I think we're ready," he said. "It's important for us this year to progress from last year, and we're definitely able to do that. From that point of view I'm pleased, and it's exciting now to go to the first race and see where we are, and finally the talking stops.
"It's still going to be the teams from last year that we need to beat, but I think we have a good chance to annoy them a few times early in the season."
While the Mercedes' tyre degradation is one of the talking points of the test so far, Rosberg shrugged off claims that the car is using its tyres too quickly.
"It's been a positive day, on the longer runs and the shorter runs," he added.
"For the long runs, it's looking okay. No, no concerns. [Degradation] is always a limitation, but it's difficult to know where everyone is. We put in a decent long run today, and we can't really compare. But it's a good base to start off with for us. We're heading in the right direction."
Rosberg also warned that the Barcelona test might not be an accurate barometer for the opening races of the season, with very difficult conditions expected in Australia and Malaysia.
"The thing is that it's very different conditions here to what we'll have in the first few races," he said. "It will be hotter, less grip, and we got caught out a bit last year. Not caught out, but it's just difficult to test well here, and carry everything over.
"You have to be very careful, because a lot of things will just not apply for the first couple of races."
SCUD: Ako imas jos sta za dodati, koristi opciju " UREDI " pa kasnije opciju " BUMPIRAJ "
Misilm da mercedes nije otkrio sve adute, i da skrivaju stvarnu brzinu bolida
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