Hamilton: 'I don’t think with this car it is ever going to be the case'

Lewis Hamilton performed to the satisfaction of the Mercedes team during the second free practice session in Spain. The driver set the fastest time and held off rival Max Verstappen by no less than six tenths.

The Mercedes team is getting better at controlling the car of Valtteri Bottas and Hamilton. "We’ve had to work at it," Hamilton told the media present in Spain. "It never comes that easy and I don’t think with this car it is ever going to be the case. But we understand the car and we know which direction we need to go balance-wise so we have made some tweaks along the way. I don’t know if it got better for this session necessarily but there were some findings there so I’m hoping to have a better set up for tomorrow.”

Then again, Hamilton understands the changes to Turn 10 a lot less. "It’s a lot, lot faster but I’ve not been in a racing position scenario so I can’t tell you if it will be better for racing or not. The one before was a dead stop. That was one other spot that you could potentially overtake but the straight was too short so I don’t know."

Qualifying

Mercedes will be hoping to achieve a similar performance in qualifying on Saturday afternoon. Although Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez drove a poor second free practice, Red Bull still have plenty of chances in the battle for the front places on Saturday.