Lewis Hamilton said he was ready for a “killer” race in Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix after bouncing back to top the times ahead of his team-mate Valtteri Bottas as Mercedes dominated Friday’s practice for the Spanish Grand Prix.
The championship
leader said the searing heat during the afternoon session had been tough to
endure, but was happy his car had survived without any serious problems.
“I don’t think I’ve
been to Spain when it’s this hot,” he said.
“We’re here in
February and March usually, or early May.
“It’s beautiful
weather, but it’s a killer in the car and it’s obviously very tough on tyres as
well.”
The six-time world
champion had been second behind Bottas after the morning’s opening session, but
re-established his supremacy on a hot afternoon at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Hamilton clocked a best lap in one minute and 16.883 seconds to outpace Bottas by 0.287 seconds with Max Verstappen, winner of last weekend’s 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone, third for Red Bull, eight-tenths adrift of the fastest lap.
In much hotter
conditions than those of the morning, with an air temperature of 30 degrees
Celsius and the track at almost 50, the two Mercedes enjoyed a comfortable
advantage over their rivals.
‘Hottest here’
“It looks like
things will be very exciting with Red Bull over the long distance,” said
Hamilton, referring to the race.
“It will therefore
be a very exciting race, I think.
“It’s definitely
quite tough out there. It’s the hottest that it has been for us here.”
Despite the heat,
he said he was generally satisfied.
“It’s been a good
day – the second session was better for me. The long runs we look very close
with the Red Bulls so I think it’s going to be a very close race.
“The tyres aren’t
happy in these conditions so you’re just sliding around with overheated tyres.
I didn’t see any blistering, but we didn’t see blistering last Friday either so
I really can’t say too much.”
Bottas, keen to
regain lost ground after slipping to third behind Verstappen in the title race
last Sunday, was also ambiguous about his prospects.
“I didn’t have a
bad feeling in the car,” he said.
“I struggled with a
bit of under-steer at the beginning of the session, but that’s normally a quick
fix with the car set-up, but it was quite a lot by the end.”
Verstappen was
similarly unconvinced that anything meaningful had been revealed on Friday.
“The car was ok on
one lap,” said the Dutchman.
“We are using all
of the hardest compounds and it is manageable. We would have liked to have a
softer tyre, but they’re not here this weekend.
“Mercedes are very
fast on one lap in qualifying, but let’s see what their race pace is like on
Sunday. I think it’s going to be very different to last week at Silverstone.”
Daniel Ricciardo
was fourth for Renault ahead of Romain Grosjean of Haas who outpaced Charles
Leclerc, who was sixth for Ferrari.
Carlos Sainz was
seventh for McLaren ahead of Sergio Perez, returning to action for Racing Point
after missing two races with coronavirus.
Esteban Ocon in the
second Renault and Pierre Gasly of Alpha Tauri filled out the top ten.
