Hamilton hoping to use FP2 as a building block

After topping the times during FP2, Lewis Hamilton ended Friday with a smile on his face as he hopes to build on that momentum going into the rest of the weekend.

Hamilton, though, was pipped by his team-mate Nico Rosberg in the first session but managed to recover and put in a quick lap time of 1:34.944 to out-do the German in the afternoon, making him the only driver to break the 1:34’ barrier for the day.

He was also glad that everything went smoothly during Friday’s proceedings as he added that there were no issues from his end, but will still analyse the data Mercedes gathered and look for areas where they can improve.

“That was a good day today,” he revealed.

“No issues to report and we got through our run plans in both sessions. There’s a lot of data to analyse tonight to make sure we have a good understanding of the tyres and of our position relative to the others.

“Overall a good building block for tomorrow and the rest of the weekend. A big shout-out to the fans out here today.

“I saw them waving across in the stands at the end of FP2 and they’ve all got banners and caps showing their support, which is great to see.”