Hamilton hoping for 'cooler and calmer' Saturday

Lewis Hamilton professed himself satisfied with his day's work at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Friday.

Hamilton was second fastest in the morning first free practice session, and went to the top of the FP2 timesheets after lunch with a lap of 1:18.259s.

"The day was pretty good," the four-time world champion declared at the end of the the two sessions. "We got through all our running and were quite fast compared to previous years [but] we've got some work to do overnight."

Gusty winds, hot sunshine and the smooth new resurfaced track made for a lively time for everyone in action in Spain. Even Hamilton had a new scares - including running wide on what was meant to be his main qualifying simulation in the afternoon.

"It was so windy out there," he agreed. "Every driver was struggling with the changing direction of the wind.

"You're constantly arriving at each corner and the wind direction is never the same, so we saw lots of drivers going off.

"These conditions make it very difficult to define where the set-up needs to go," he added. "I'm hoping that it's cooler and calmer tomorrow.

"I think it is going to be relatively close between the top three teams but I can't really say who is quickest at the moment."

FP2: Hamilton takes charge in Barcelona as Raikkonen hits problems

His team mate Valtteri Bottas will almost certainly be in the running for pole position. He set the fastest time of the day overall - 1:18.148s - in the morning session.

"It's been a good day overall," he confirmed. "FP1 was especially promising, the car felt good from the start."

The afternoon didn't go quite as well, and he was only fifth fastest - three and a half tenths slower than Hamilton.

"We made some changes for FP2 which didn't improve the car," he revealed. "So we reverted back to the original set-up."

One particular thing that had caught Bottas' attention ws the way that few drivers had been able to get any extra performance our of their cars after switching to the supersoft tyre, the softest compound available from Pirelli this weekend.

"I didn't really feel any gain of grip with the supersoft compared to the other tyres," he confirmed. "We will have to work on this area for tomorrow."

Overall, he felt that he was in with a chance of pole tomorrow - but certainly wasn't taking anything for granted.

"Today has been a good start to the weekend, but things can change quickly from Friday to Saturday. Especially since Ferrari and Red Bull looked quick today."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.