Mercedes tested new parts on Friday practice for Belgian GP

Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton completed the first two practice sessions in quite differing track conditions at Spa today.

The team completed a total of 80 laps of running during today's two ninety-minutes sessions. The primary technical objective was to comprehensively evaluate new low-drag aerodynamic developments for this circuit.

Nico Rosberg: (FP2: P5, 33 laps, 1:50.601, P9): It's great to be back at the Spa circuit, particularly as our car is more competitive this year, and it feels such an improvement to drive through the quick corners here. I'm not entirely sure where we are compared to the others but it looks like it will be quite a tough challenge and, of course, it is a completely different track here to at the last race. Today went pretty well for us though and it could be an interesting weekend, particularly with the mixed weather conditions that are predicted.

Lewis Hamilton: (FP2: P15, 27 laps, 1:50.751, P12): We have some work ahead of us this evening to get the car feeling just right but overall today was a reasonable start to the weekend. The car feels very different here with the low downforce set-up, compared to at the last race, and we need to refine a few areas to get the balance sorted. We were able to get some good long run work done today and that's the most important thing for the race. We've got time to make the changes required so I'm optimistic that tomorrow will see an improvement.

Ross Brawn: We had a good day overall. There were lots of new parts to test, we got that work done successfully and once the drivers had settled into their race simulation runs this afternoon, the lap times looked pretty respectable. We still have some work to do on our single lap pace but we think we know what needs to be done there in order to improve.

Toto Wolff: It was a decent day for the team and we completed all the programmes that we had planned today, in spite of the mixed conditions in the first session. The long-run pace looked good but we need to analyse why we were losing time in sector one over a single timed lap. The other factor we will have to consider this evening is the weather, as the forecasts suggest there will be rain around on Saturday and Sunday, which could influence some of the compromises we make in terms of set-up.

Mercedes AMG Petronas