Lewis Hamilton: “It’s been a bit of an unusual Friday”

Lewis Hamilton has said that his Friday at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was “a bit of an unusual one” for himself, struggling to find rhythm out on track whilst looking to “exploit” areas of his Mercedes.

Hamilton found himself in third place at the end of FP1 behind Max Verstappen and teammate Valtteri Bottas but managed to secure a Silver Arrow’s one-two in the second session, sitting just over three tenths off the Finn.

"It's been a bit of an usual Friday for me; I was struggling to get into the rhythm today, but you have your good and bad days,” said Hamilton.
 
“Nonetheless, the car still felt good, but there's definitely areas that we can work on as a team and areas for me to work on personally.
 
“I'll just sit down tonight and make sure to get that straight for tomorrow.”
 
Having secured his sixth World Championship a few weeks ago in Austin the Briton is looking to try and ‘push’ his Mercedes to different limits to see its capabilities.
 
“I've been trying to explore some new avenues with the car,” he added.
 
“We already know where it works well, so I'm pushing the car into different places, just trying to see if there's anywhere else I can exploit the car and the tyres for the future."