Lewis Hamilton shared that after his first kilometers around Suzuka on Friday, he is happy with the W15 balance and performance so far.
The seven-time world champion finished the FP1 session in P5, just +0.487 behind Max Verstappen, who was the fastest. The second free practice session wasn’t significant due to the rain, but Hamilton still managed to clock a lap time valid for P2.
The Britton is happy with how Mercedes started the Japanese weekend considering the struggles the team had in Melbourne.
“It was a great session, it was a really good session for us. It was the best session that we’ve had this year, and it’s the best the car has felt this year so far. So, so far, really positive.
“I was really excited because this is a circuit that every driver loves to drive. In the last couple of years, we’ve had a really difficult car and a difficult balance to drive here. But given the difficult last few races we’ve had; great work has been done this past week.
“We just seem to have hit the ground a bit more in a sweeter spot. I haven’t really made any changes since.”
Hamilton also said that he finally managed to start a weekend with the right set-up, and the car was “really nice to drive.”
He also admitted that missing FP2 wasn’t ideal, as the team wanted to try a few things.
“In FP1 we definitely performed better than we expected, so that was a pleasant surprise,” he said.
“The car was feeling really nice to drive, and Lewis and I were really happy with the balance. It has been performing better when it’s been slightly colder, but we’ve been doing a lot of test items to try and make that car a little bit more consistent when conditions are variable. So, time will tell.
“FP2 was definitely a miss for everybody, as we had some interesting things we wanted to try. But that’s the nature of Formula 1 sometimes.”