Lewis Hamilton has recognized that Mercedes still have noteworthy opportunity to get better following a harried practice day on Friday in front of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Hamilton overwhelmed hone in Baku a year ago in front of Azerbaijan’s first fabulous prix, however battled on Friday and completed the second session in tenth place, 1.163 seconds behind pace-setter Max Verstappen.
He additionally almost crashed into Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen at the principal turn. The three-times title holder will be frantic to exile recollections of a year ago’s race, when he cut a boundary in qualifying, began tenth on the grid, and wound up in fifth.
“It was a difficult day out there,” Briton Hamilton said. “This circuit is a tough one and we had a few challenges that we tried to work through today.
“We’ve clearly still got lots of work to do ahead of qualifying, but (team mate) Valtteri (Bottas)’s time in FP2 looked promising, so there is obviously pace in the car, which is encouraging.
“Now it’s just a case of getting our heads together tonight to work out exactly how to extract that pace across the entire weekend.”
Bottas anticipated on Thursday that a few drivers would battle with the slippy and dusty conditions in Baku’s road circuit, and he was demonstrated great Perez, Jolyon Palmer and Verstappen collided with the obstructions.
“Practice one was quite tricky,” Bottas said. “We were struggling with the set-up of the car and it wasn’t so well balanced.
“Today, we needed multiple laps in a row to generate the temperatures we want for a good balance. FP1 wasn’t a happy session, but we made some changes ahead of FP2 and the car definitely felt more comfortable,” he added.
“We are moving in the right direction and hopefully we’ll make another step this evening. We’ll work hard and if we can find those gains we’ll be right up there fighting for pole position.”
It was a “sketchy day punctuated like clockwork by handfuls and many off-track skips”, as indicated by Mercedes specialized chief James Allison. Be that as it may, in spite of the fact that Bottas had a nearby shave in the wake of going into a turn on Turn 10 by and by one, he recouped to complete second, a tenth of a moment behind Verstappen, at night.
