The Mercedes F1 team has completed a full day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona on Sunday, utilising the 'spare' day of testing they had available after their three-day stint at Jerez with their 2011 car.
Mercedes have yet to officially unveil their new 2012 machine, with the W03 set to be launched on Tuesday ahead of the start of next week's four-day test in Barcelona.But after completing a brief shakedown of the car at Silverstone last week, the team conducted a full day's testing at the Spanish track on Sunday.
Mercedes confirmed that they had completed over 300km of running with the new car, with both Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher driving the car.
The German marque were able to conduct the private test day after choosing to skip the final day of the Jerez test earlier this month, where they spent three days running their 2011 car.
Each team is allowed 15 days of testing per season under current F1 rules, with teams tending to run at set group tests.
But after only completing three of the four days in Jerez, Mercedes were able to use their extra day on Sunday instead, to help them hit the ground running with the W03 next week.
"W03 had a second track outing today as we completed a private test in Barcelona," the team wrote on their Twitter feed, "Michael drove this morning and Nico this afternoon."
They added: "Over 300 kms completed for our testing programme with the new car.
"To confirm: under the testing agreement, not running on the final day of the team test in Jerez allowed us to nominate a private test day."
The team did not release any official times from the test itself.
Mercedes were the only frontrunning team to choose to delay the introduction of their new 2012 car until after the first test in Jerez, but this private run will be an effort to make up for lost time.
The new W03 will be launched on Tuesday morning, with the team then set to go head-to-head with their main rivals for the first time across the four-day run.
Schumacher is set to drive the car for the first day, with Rosberg then taking the wheel for the first time on Wednesday.
The exact spec of the new car is still unknown, though spy shots from their Silverstone shakedown indicated that the team has followed most of the rest of the grid in adopting a 'platypus'-style nose.
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