Ross Brawn confirms the handling and balance of the new Mercedes GP W01 is not 'quite right' – but that it should be fixed for next week's Jerez test.
Mercedes team boss Ross Brawn has conceded that the new MGP W01 wasn't as quick as he had hoped this week during testing at Valencia in Spain.
Michael Schumacher and
Nico Rosberg both drove for the Brackley-based outfit – former 2009 F1 title winners
Brawn GP – over the three-days. However the team's best lap, a 1 minute 12.438 seconds - set by record-breaking multiple F1 world champion Schumacher - left them only seventh on the combined times.
"On full tanks we didn't look too bad but we are a little bit off the pace," Brawn told
BBC Sport. "The handling and balance of the car is not quite right, but we can fix it for Jerez. We know what the problem is.
"Of course the other teams will be progressing as well. We are not as quick as Ferrari, and
Lewis Hamilton looked quick on Tuesday for McLaren, so it looks like we have got a bit of work to do.
"We are cracking exhausts and we have to change those every 150-200 kilometres. It is a problem we can fix but here it is difficult.
"We've got a handling imbalance because we are all learning about these tyres here and we've seen straight away some things we want done on the tyres which we will have done by Jerez."
F1 2010 testing continues next week at
Jerez with running commencing on February 10 and concluding on February 13.
