Hamilton: Mercedes will 'come back stronger' after engine issues

Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes will “come back better and stronger”  after engine issues hampered its Formula 1 pre-season testing programme on Thursday at Barcelona.

Hamilton completed just 14 laps in the afternoon session on the penultimate day of pre-season testing before he ground to a halt, with his Mercedes W11 suffering a precautionary power unit shutdown due to an oil pressure anomaly.

Mercedes’ programme was cut-short as a result of its latest engine-related issue, with customer team Williams having already used three power units after encountering reliability failures throughout testing.

“Testing didn’t quite go to plan today but we’ll come back better and stronger tomorrow,” Hamilton said.

“I only got 14 laps in today, but during those 14 laps, everything was feeling fine.

“It's obviously not ideal that we didn't get a full day of running in and we experienced this issue, but there are lots of learnings to take from today.

“Rather than looking at the negatives, we've discovered some things we need to work on, and we'll keep pushing hard to resolve them and keep working away,” he added.

"I'm looking forward to being back in the car tomorrow morning and adding to the mileage we've already achieved.”

Mercedes technical director James Allison insisted the team still managed to collect some useful data from Hamilton’s solitary run and revealed the German manufacturer will focus on one lap performance on the final day of testing.

“It's frustrating when there's only six days of winter testing, to be spending half of one day in the garage,” Allison explained.

“But, nevertheless, we did some good work this morning with Valtteri. Furthermore, in the solitary run that we managed with Lewis this afternoon, we managed to get a very useful data point from the car.

“We're happy to have learnt more about its behaviour, and we're reassured that in blustery conditions, that the car has still got a decent turn of pace.

“We're looking forward to tomorrow, where we'll have a good amount of time with both drivers on the softer tyre compounds; working on single-lap set-up and performance.”

Testing didn’t quite go to plan today but we’ll come back better and stronger tomorrow
Thank you #TeamLH for all your support, I see all of your messages and love that you send me. pic.twitter.com/y7A0BORYYH

— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) February 27, 2020