Lewis Hamilton admits Mercedes have lost some pace in comparison to its rivals in Hungary, after the Briton could only manage the sixth quickest time, half a second off the lead pace.
Practice on Friday was the first opportunity Mercedes have had to try out the revised tyres after they were banned from testing them earlier in the month.
Hamilton isn’t sure whether the new tyres are to blame for the lack of pace, admitting “they’re the same as before,” but he is hopeful they can find improvements before qualifying.
“We don’t seem to have the pace that we had at the last race, but we’ll make some changes tonight and try to understand,” he said on Friday.
“As I said, we came into the weekend on the back-foot trying to understand the tyres a bit, we did a lot of laps today so we have a lot of information to look at and take into tomorrow.”
He conceded that main rival Red Bull look to have it under control at the moment after they secured a one-two in both sessions.
“Red Bull seem particularly quick this weekend,” he added. “Fuel loads play a huge part and when we get to qualifying we are generally able to pull out a little bit more. I was told that on the same laps on the long runs that Mark Webber was eight-tenths faster at some stages, so that’s interesting.”
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