Bottas expecting a close battle but admits he was off the pace in FP2

Mercedes spent large portions of the first practice session testing the 2020 Pirelli prototype and Valtteri Bottas has admitted development was the key focus during the opening session.

Bottas finished down in 18th in FP1 having been running the Pirelli prototypes, he only finished ahead of Lando Norris and the Williams pair. Lewis Hamilton managed eighth in the first session but both were amongst the leaders in FP2 as Hamilton topped the timesheets with Bottas down in P5.

Bottas admitted that the morning session was more about development than anything else and that not much can be read into it.

"This morning was all about development work for next year, so the lap times didn’t really matter," Bottas said.

"We were focusing on gathering data on the new tyres which was quite interesting and just went through our programme without worrying too much about lap times.

"It looks pretty close between the teams at the top, but I personally struggled a bit in FP2. I lost some time on the straights and the car didn’t feel quite right, so that’s something we will have to look at tonight."