Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton was the fastest an in both practice sessions at the Interlagos Circuit in Brazil on Friday, the four time world champion thrilled to drive the 2017 cars around this particular circuit in anger for the first time.
The Brit got through his scheduled program with ease as he worked on development items for next season, giving his rivals a taste of what's to come in the 2018 championship season.
With the championship now out of the way, the pressure is off and Lewis is having fun doing what he loves most, driving fast!
โIt's been a good day. It was pretty exciting to come to the track with the cars being so much faster this year,โ he said. โ It's physically more demanding than before which is great and it's obviously quite warm out there today. "
"We got through the long runs and the short runs; unfortunately, the tyres don't really last very long, so you only get one or two laps on the short runs. Overall, we got through what we needed to do. We're in a decent position but I think it could be quite close.โ
Teammate Valtteri Bottas, who is now looking to secure second in the world championship, finished close behind Hamilton in both sessions and he too was happy with how the first day unfolded.
โI think it was a positive day for us. Initially in Practice 1 we did some aero tests, looking at some things we can improve for next year,โ he said. โWe now have some data to analyse from that."
"Otherwise, I think both the short runs and the long runs in both sessions looked positive for us as a team, so we have a good starting point for the weekend. Still, we were a little bit struggling to get the set-up right for each corner of the circuit. However, I was really enjoying this track and I'm looking forward to the weekend.โ
