Michael Schumacher believes the third row of the Barcelona grid is a realistic goal for Mercedes as he does not think the team's upgrade package will launch it ahead of any of the front runners.
Schumacher's teammate Nico Rosberg started third in Turkey, but the former was keeping his hopes for Spain low-key after practice.
"We have had quite a reasonable Friday and have clearly demonstrated an upward tendency with our improvements seeming to work well," said Schumacher, who was seventh today. "Saying that, the other teams have improved, too, so without having had a chance to look deeper into the data, I would say that we may be fighting for the third row. We will continue to work further on our performance for tomorrow."
Rosberg was sixth this afternoon, and felt Mercedes had not shown its ultimate pace due to its tactics and the conditions.
"I think in general it was decent – we did some good testing, concentrating more on high fuel, that's why maybe we're not quite so high up in the order, and we learned something, so that's the main thing," he said. "Today was so difficult because the wind was so intense and the tires weren't working, so it was complicated."