Bottas confident Mercedes can overcome "obstacles" with W10

Valtteri Bottas is confident that Mercedes can overcome the "obstacles" with their 2019 W10 as the champions prepare to retain their crown for the 2019 Formula 1 season.

Bottas and his team-mate Lewis Hamilton struggled to handle the car during the first week of pre-season testing in Barcelona.

But Mercedes made some alterations to its W10 and Hamilton said it handled a lot better during the second week in Spain.

However, some issues are obviously still present in the car, but Bottas, like his team-mate, is pleased with the progress the Silver Arrows made in the final part of testing.

"There's always hurdles or obstacles in this sport and with a new car," Bottas told Crash.net. "Definitely we have some balance issues we still need to solve. Many things in the car we can still improve but I have faith in the team.

"We've been in difficult situations before with the car, we've had race weekends where we've been underperforming with the car, so any obstacle I feel is possible to overcome.

"It's all about hard work and working together as a team for that. I trust everyone in the factory and the race team is really making sure that the starting point we have to the season we are going to be in the best possible shape for Melbourne."