Lewis Hamilton doubts that Mercedes will be able to close the gap to Ferrari at this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, given the advantage its opponent held in second practice.
The opening session at Baku City Circuit was all-but-abandoned in the wake of George Russell striking a loose drain cover, meaning extensive track checks were required.
When action resumed later in the afternoon Ferrari held a substantial advantage, with Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel trading quickest times.
Leclerc eventually wound up fastest, 0.324s quicker than Vettel, while third-best Hamilton was 0.669s adrift of the Monegasque youngster.
“It's been a bit of an odd day, but I still enjoyed it,” he said.
“FP2 went really well, I was feeling good out there and I was more comfortable in the car than I was last year.
“However, the Ferraris are clearly very quick and it looks like they're quite a bit ahead of us, so we'll need to investigate to see where we are losing time compared to them.
“It's unlikely that we will find seven tenths over night, but we'll do everything we can to push the car in the right direction.
“Our long run pace looked a little bit stronger than our short run pace, so we'll need to try and find out why.
“It should be a good fight tomorrow; I'm always down for a fight and I think that's what the fans want to see, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas finished fifth, having been shuffled back a position by the Red Bull of Max Verstappen.
“I'm not really pleased with the laps I did, but it's always a bit tricky to find the rhythm in Baku and it takes a bit of time,” he said.
“It wasn't easy to get the Medium compound up to the right temperatures today, but corner speeds will increase due to track evolution, so we should be able to get a bit more energy into the tyres tomorrow.
“Our long runs felt good and the pace didn't look too bad either, but we are a bit behind on single lap pace. Ferrari looked really strong, particularly on the short runs, so it will be a tough fight tomorrow.”
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