It was the busiest day of pre-season running so far for the new Mercedes-AMG F1 W09 EQ Power+, with the car clocking an impressive 177 laps on the opening day of the second pre-season test.
The challenging and tricky conditions of the first test cost F1 teams crucial time out on track and vital running on dry tyres, but they were eager to make up for lost ground on Tuesday.
In order to maximise the opportunities available, we split running between Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton on Tuesday and will continue to do so this week.
Following a weekend break, Valtteri was back behind the wheel of the W09 in the morning session, before team-mate Lewis took over for the afternoon.
Our lap tally was the biggest of any team on Tuesday, gathering more important data and information to take forward to the remaining test days and start of the new season.
Valtteri was eager to get back in the car on Tuesday and quickly rattled through a number of runs, before settling into the cockpit of the W09 for the morning session.
The Finn was the early pacesetter and ended the day's running second on the leaderboard, with a best time of 1:20.596 on the Soft tyre.
"The conditions today were much better than last week and we're all really happy about that," Valtteri said. "We got lots of valuable data today. This morning we focused on medium to long runs, trying different mechanical setups of the car.
"In these weather conditions we start to really work the tyres and we had a few issues to manage. So we had a few more challenges with the tyres than we had last week, but at least now they can warm up.
"We keep discovering more about the new car, learning how it reacts to different settings. We did more than 80 laps - so more than a race distance, a really good mileage. The car was very reliable, I really enjoyed being back in the car and I'm looking forward to continuing tomorrow."
Lewis jumped into the W09 just after the lunch break and was soon back out on track, racking up the laps.
He gradually chipped away at his best time and concluded the day in fourth place with a 1:20.808, also set on Soft tyres. In total, the four-time World Champion put in 91 laps.
"It's been a good day," Lewis explained. "We've got through everything we needed and put good mileage on the car - it's been productive.
"The biggest challenge we faced today was to get the tyres working properly on this new track surface. The medium tyre was difficult to get working; the soft tyre is better for warm-up, but suffered with degradation. But we are learning all the time.
"Overall it's been a good start to the second test although there is not a whole lot to say at this moment. We have not worked too much on fine-tuning the set-up as we're mostly still gathering information.
"In the next couple of days, once we get into the long-runs and some shorter qualifying-style runs, we will get a better idea of where the car is."
| Pos. | Driver | Team | Laps | Time |
| 1 | Sebastian Vettel (5) | Ferrari | 171 | 1:20.396 |
| 2 | Valtteri Bottas (77) | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport | 86 | 1:20.596 |
| 3 | Max Verstappen (33) | Red Bull | 130 | 1:20.649 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton (44) | Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport | 91 | 1:20.808 |
| 5 | Pierre Gasly (10) | Toro Rosso | 54 | 1:20.973 |
| 6 | Kevin Magnussen (20) | Haas | 96 | 1:21.298 |
| 7 | Nico Hülkenberg (27) | Renault | 48 | 1:21.432 |
| 8 | Carlos Sainz (55) | Renault | 91 | 1:21.455 |
| 9 | Sergey Sirotkin (35) | Williams | 42 | 1:21.588 |
| 10 | Sergio Perez (11) | Force India | 93 | 1:21.643 |
| 11 | Marcus Ericsson (9) | Sauber | 120 | 1:21.706 |
| 12 | Stoffel Vandoorne (2) | McLaren | 38 | 1:21.946 |
| 13 | Lance Stroll (18) | Williams | 86 | 1:22.937 |
