Both Lew🐽is Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas have reported challenges getting Pirelli’s new F1 tyres to work on the recently-resurfaced Circuit de C🐼atalunya with the new Mercedes W09.

Having opted to split the day’s track running between its two drivers, Mercedes notched up a marathon number of laps on the opening day of the second F1 test with Bottas producing 86 l𓃲aps in the morning before handing over to Hamilton to stack 💯up 91 laps in the afternoon session to collect the highest number of any F1 team.

Pit lane pictures caught the Mercedes suffering heavy blistering and degradation on the soft and medium rear Pire🧸lli tyres and both drivers co🅘nceded it was a worry they shared at the Spanish circuit.

“In these weather conditions we start to really work the tyres and we had a few issues to manage,” Bottas said. “So we had a few more challen🙈ges 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.”

Hamilton has echoed his teammate’s thoughts having been critical of the recent resurfacing of Circuit de Catalunya which🔯 he felt had “lost character”.

“The bigges✨t challenge we faced today was to get the tyres working properly on this new track surface,” Hamilton agreed. “The medium tyre was difficult to get working; the soft tyre is better for warm-up, but suffered with degradation. We are l😼earning all the time.

“It's been a good day. We've got through everything 𓆉we needed and put good mileage on the car - it's been productive.”

Mer🧸cedes will continue to split its driver duties per day between Bottas and Hamilton for the final three days of 2018 F1 pre-season testing at Circuit de Cataluꦗnya which concludes this Friday.