Mercedes reiterate belief they had permission to run the W04 in 'secret' test

Mercedes have reiterated their confidence they received the appropriate permission to run in the three-day tyre test at Barcelona that their F1 rivals believe was illegal and is the subject of a FIA investigation.

Brawn also took umbrage with the widespread interpretation by the media that the three-day test had been 'secret', instead insisting that it had simply been 'private'. "There's been an unfortunate branding of a 'secret' test - it was a private test, it wasn't a secret test. "If anyone believes you can go to Barcelona and do three days of testing, or 1000km of testing, and not have anyone become aware of it is naive. So it was a private test, not a secret test." Mercedes have also insisted nothing sinister should be interpreted from the fact their race drivers Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg completed on-track duties at the test, or the fact they both sported anonymous helmets. According to the team, that latter measure was only taken as a means towards avoiding the distracting attention of fans. "In terms of running the race drivers, in any form of testing apart from the young driver test, there's no control or limitation on the type of driver you have in the car," Brawn said on Friday. "So it was natural for us to use the drivers we had. We wanted the most representative conditions we could for the Pirelli test. It's as simple as that." Meanwhile, it's now widely believed that the 'secret' test was first divulged by race director Whiting at a meeting of the GPDA after qualifying in Monaco.