Mercedes AMG Petronas
World Champion Lewis Hamilton is confident about Mercedes' prospects at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix but says the outfit spent Friday practice focusing on tyre wear.
Hamilton topped the afternoon session at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya and ended four-tenths clear of Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel, but says his priority was on understanding the nature of the Pirelli tyres.
"It's been a fairly decent day - mainly working on setup, tweaking the balance bit by bit," he said.
"It's often hard to get a good comparison between the sessions with the track and wind conditions changing. The wind was quite strong at times today and really inconsistent around the lap.
"The car is quite affected by that and it was pretty hot out there in the afternoon too, so I think maybe the temperatures also had an effect on lap times.
"The priority was understanding the tyres and how they wear because, ultimately, the race is the most important part of the weekend. We've not analysed the times yet but our pace felt pretty strong."
